


The Path that Moonbeams Make

by Avdal



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arabian Nights Fusion, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Harem, Arranged Marriage, Drama & Romance, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Medium Burn, Prompt Fic, Romance, Smut, Tags Are Hard, Tags May Change, Tags are so hard, Tumblr Prompt, Unresolved Sexual Tension, multiple wives with ultimate monogamy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2019-06-29 06:33:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 70,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15723915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avdal/pseuds/Avdal
Summary: “Do you know why I chose you, Rey?” Kylo asks.  “Why I picked you out of the hundreds of other women my kingdom presented to me?”Rey narrows her eyes.  Glares at the moon peaking through the bars in the window.  The land outside calls to her, offering her a life of freedom she has now been denied by this sham of a marriage.Kylo reaches out to stroke her cheek and she slaps his hand away without thinking about it.  Crown Prince of Alderaan or not, Rey wants absolutely nothing to do with her new husband.“Ah, there it is, Rey,” he says lowly, his gaze darting from her eyes to her lips then back.  “There’s that same look you gave me when I tried to kiss you during our ceremony.  Truly you will make a fine wife.”





	1. When Stars Light Up the Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thevagabondthoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=thevagabondthoughts).



> For thevagabondthoughts who has been kept waiting on this prompt for literally 10,000 years. Literally. The earth was a lot cooler and less crowded when she prompted me with an Arabian Nights esque AU.

Rey’s new husband had told her the guards were there to protect her. She didn’t believe him for a second.

 

No, the escort of heavily armed and supernaturally inclined guards that shadowed her every step through the palace were there for one purpose and one alone: _to keep her from running away_.

 

Five hours. That’s how long it had been. They had been married for less than _five hours_ , and now she was already her husband’s prisoner. This was worse than she had been bracing herself for.

 

Their ceremony had been gaudy. Tactless and appalling in its grandeur. Rey hadn’t wanted to be there. Hadn’t wanted to marry at all, let alone be married to _him_.

 

Her family had needed her to do this, though. Marrying the Crown Prince of Alderaan would secure their collapsing future. They had all come to the wedding. Her uncle, her friends, and a slew of cousins both near,distant, and presumed but not proven to even be truly related to her. They had all been in attendance for the momentous occasion of watching her marry a prince when she would rather be out in the desert wastes picking through wreckage.

 

Her new husbands wives had also been there.

 

That had been the final straw. That’s when it had crossed the line from ‘I’ll do it because I have to’ all the way to ‘I hate you and I’ll never forgive you for this’. Rey had known that the Prince had been married before, but there were _dozens_ of them. Every look they gave her on her way down the aisle was a calculated smile covering up focused malice.

 

Maybe the guards had really been there for her protection after all?

 

“This way, m’lady.”

 

It was the first time the guards had spoken, despite Rey’s first initial attempts to coax them into smalltalk. If she could make them like her… maybe they would let her go. Maybe they would let her run away. Or maybe at least they would give her a longer leash to hang herself on.

 

Rey picks up the pace again, following them when it’s clear that escape will have to take another way. The halls of the Alderaan High Palace were vast. A seemingly endless network of twists and turns. Easy to get lost in. Easy to hide in.

 

It offered her possibilities.

 

“Are we close?” she asks, hugging herself.

 

Rey pulls her dressing gown tighter as the cold starts to seep in through the layers of silk. She wasn’t wearing much under it. The attendants hadn’t _let_ her wear much. All the better to present herself as a present bought and wrapped tonight.

 

The head guard, the one that had spoken all of three words to her, nods. Speaks no fourth.

 

At least none of the harpy eyed sister wives were around to enhance her misery as she’s escorted in monotonoussilence.

 

Their wedding ceremony had ended abruptly and on a sour note for both the newlyweds. To any of the multitude of onlookers, they had kissed behind the shield of her veil and formally sealed her fate. Only she and her ‘husband’ knew the truth that she had turned her head at the last moment. Let him kiss her painted cheek rather than her lips.

 

He’d pulled away and the look in his eyes had told her he wasn’t happy. Pity.

 

“To the right, m’lady.”

 

They had reached a crossroads in an open courtyard. High above Rey’s head shines the moon and stars, and the paths under her feet is smooth white brick cutting a line through plumes of flowers. Their heady scent hangs low in the air, making for a pleasant break from the dark bleakness of the earlier halls.

 

Should Rey survive the night without murdering her husband and condemning herself to a life on the run, she would like to come back here.

 

The next part of the palace is different. It skips the cold austerity of the earlier halls and replaces it was something more intimate. The walls are lined with velvet. _Velvet_. Rey has never seen something so decadent and she can’t resist running her hand across it as they walk. It’s both cool and soft against her fingers. Welcoming and-

 

Rey pulls away as a warmth rises to her cheeks. If her impeccably trained guards take notice, they hide it well.

 

There are voices here too. Women’s voices that echo with laughter or low, hushed tones of talk. Rey listens as they walk, trying to catch even an edge of a conversation.

 

Her name. The new wife. That lowland trash picker.

 

Rey’s cheeks begin to burn for a whole new reason. Her heritage was a sore spot for everyone except for herself. And, seemingly, for her husband. Kylo had picked her out personally. He had taken a shine to her right away, literal desire at first sight. Out of all the young women she had been presented with, all decked out and lined up waiting with breathless hope or bitter _don’t you dare_ , he had just had to choose her.

 

Right now, if she hadn’t just gotten wedded, she would be out in the desert picking through trash. Her skin would be chapped by wind, her fingers numb from the cold and sharp edges, and she would be _free_.

 

The women’s voices rise higher. Another bend in the hallway and Rey can see deep red light spilling out from an open door. As the guards bring her past she pauses and they stop with her.

 

Inside is… is a place like none she’s ever seen before. The room is dimly lit but altogether inviting. Incense hangs in the air, its smoke reflecting off the fire and the tinted lanterns. Soft music plays and _oh_ , that’s where the other wives have gone to.

 

Curiosity bites at Rey’s heels and she takes a step closer, craning her neck to see in. The guards stay rigid in place, each of them having their head dropped and gazing at the floor between their feet. Truly well trained indeed.

 

Another step, and Rey can see around the corner pillar. She bites back a gasp. Many, not all, but many of the women are naked or nearly so. Some are decked in jewels with nothing else. Other are wearing simple dresses even more sheer than the one Rey has on herself under her robe.

 

But it’s not the romping nudity that surprises her, it’s the _activities_ they’re indulging in. Two men, both dressed like very high ranking Alderaan nobility, are seated along a plush couch that runs the full length of the far wall. They are surrounded by the wives and being… touched by them. One has her head in the man’s lap and his hand is tangled in her hair. The other has her back to Rey but there is an unmistakable sort of movement to her body and-

 

A blonde woman, tall and voluptuous and wearing nothing but a glittering necklace that cascades down her ample chest, steps of from the sidelines and blocks Rey’s view. She smiles at her, but there is absolutely nothing warm or welcoming to the expression. Predatory, almost. She closes the door in Rey’s face, leaving her in the quiet dimness of the hallways once more.

 

She hadn’t seen her new husband in there. At least there was that. Otherwise Rey isn’t sure what she would have done but it would have been very poorly thought out.

 

But he shares his wives with other men? Rey hadn’t been expecting that. Would that be her fate as well then?

 

Her husband, it seemed, was a filthy, greedy pig. She hated him and she didn’t want to lay with him tonight.

 

Tough.

 

No one cares about that.

 

“Let’s go,” she whispers.

 

The guards move again, bringing her to a bedroom door far closer to the entrance to the harem than she would have preferred.

 

Then they leave her, departing once she has been safely tucked inside her new bedroom. The sound of the door locking behind her before silence is quite possibly the worst noise Rey has ever heard in her life.

 

Her heart starts to pound in her ears as she takes in the conditions of her new cage. It’s a beautiful and opulent room, of course, but the windows have bars over them. So her husband may be cruel, but he wasn’t an idiot. He knew she wanted to fly, fly away. Rey had really rather hoped he was an idiot. It would have made things so much easier.

 

There’s nothing of _her_ here. Nothing that she likes or wants. The shelves are covered with musical instruments or cosmetics or paints and paper. Activities for those with a vapid mind and better manners than she ever learned.

 

And there’s a single rose laying on the pillow of the bed, it’s bright pink petals contrasting strangely with the heavy black brocade of the sheets. No message, no sign, just a gift from her new husband.

 

Rey can’t bring herself to crush it like she wants to. It was pretty. Had she found it in her old life, she would have kept it. For that reason alone she consigns it into a drawer where she won’t have to look at it as it fades Now all that is left is to pace and wait for her husband to return.

 

Somehow she’s sure he won’t keep her waiting for long.

 

*

 

“I will not be one of your painted whores. If that’s all you see in me, then send me away now and let’s end this charade.”

 

Kylo’s face remains the same portrait of cold detachment, but Rey can feel a shift in the air between them. This apparently was not the wedding night conversation he had in mind.

 

“You have too much malice for a newlywed, my dear Rey. I take it our wedding was not to your liking?”

 

Rey crosses her arms over her chest. Despite the heavy fabric of her dressing gown and the fire in the corner, all Rey can feel is the iciness between them.

 

Everything about her husband infuriates her. From the way he came into her bedroom without even a knock to how he had disregarded each of her insults to his character. The encounter with the other wives, brief and mute though it was, had left a bitter taste in her mouth that had made it all too easy for her to say what she really thought of him.

 

“You’re selfish, you’re lecherous, and you’re greedy,” she spits. “No woman should have to endure a husband such as you.”

 

Kylo tips his head and nods. He circles her slowly and Rey squeezes her hands into tight fists to keep herself from cringing when he reaches out.

 

“What else?”

 

His hand is warm on her shoulder, though. He tries to turn her to face him and she holds her ground, staring rigidly ahead.

 

“What else?” she raises an eyebrow but pulls her chin free of his hand. “Do you really want me to list all of your flaws, husband _?_ If you were expecting anything else, perhaps you should go to one of _them_ tonight and leave me in peace.”

 

Kylo pulls away then. She stares at him from the corner of her eyes, her scowl deepening begins to pace back and forth.

 

“Oh is that what this is about, _wife?_ You’re jealous of the others already?”

 

Rey chokes on her next breath. She spins to glare at him, feeling her temper rapidly spiraling out of hand.

 

“Jealous? How could I poss- what would I have to be jealous of? Your kennel of well groomed playthings have nothing that I could ever possibly want. ”

Something occurs to her then, as she watches her husband pace with a barely contained show of annoyance. Kylo’s father had not been king, but he was infamously known. Regarded by many as both a hero and a vagabond, while it had been her husband’s mother who had achieved the greatest fame and support of her people.

 

“How many wives did your father have?” Rey asks, changing direction. “As many or maybe even more as you, I would wager.”

 

Kylo swallows. Rey watches the swell of his throat bob up and down. For a fleeting moment, she thinks she sees more in him. That there’s someone deeper in there behind his cold mask.

 

“Just the one,” he finally says, “my mother. They loved each other, but their relationship was difficult. Sometimes I wonder if they weren’t… if things could have gone differently.

 

He turns to her then, closing the distance between them until Rey has to crane her neck up to meet his eyes.

 

“Do you know why I chose you, Rey?” he asks. “Why I picked you out of the hundreds of other women my kingdom presented to me?”

 

Rey narrows her eyes. Glares at the moon peaking through the bars in the window. Just a week ago she could have felt the light on her skin during one of her nighttime scavenges.

 

“I suppose it was because I caught your lustful eye, wasn’t it?” she argues back. “Perhaps you wanted a new toy in my color, or maybe you simply could tell I despised you and you wanted the challenge.”

 

Truth be told, Rey has no idea why she was chosen. There had been so many other girls who could have better suited his needs, though she doubts the last of her accusations. He seems to be genuinely perturbed by her dismissal of him.

 

“No, Rey, my wife.” His hand falls on her shoulder and bounces with her as she tries to shrug him off. “It was because I saw you the day before you were presented to me. You were out there in the open desert, leaping from one towering pile of wreckage to another without even a flicker of hesitation or fear. You were brave. You were beyond brave. And you were very beautiful.”

 

He narrates his story with a sweep of his open palm through the air almost as if he’s trying to make a shadow reenactment.

 

Rey frowns, noticing that he’s leaning closer and closer to her space.

 

“What about it?” she says. “That is my life. That’s what I had to do to survive and help my family.”

 

His hand drops. It falls close to her own but doesn’t touch.

 

“I had watched you as you disappeared into the distance, and immediately I sensed a connection. That’s why I had you brought to me. I’d asked in the village for more about you, and it was your uncle himself who told me all I needed to know. He showed me that you were both brave, and loyal, and very clever. These were three things that I have come to highly prize in a wife.”

 

Any mention of his other wives flashes her mind back to the ease of anger.

 

“How many of the rest of them are like that?” she says, hastily backing away again. “How many more will you need after me?”

 

Kylo smiles. It’s the first time she has seen him smile. He certainly wasn’t smiling during their wedding. In fact, he had been rather dour and somber throughout the whole spectacle affair.

 

“Do you not think we are the same, Rey? Because I see you as my balance, despite our differences. Why can’t you extend the same courtesy to me, when you only know my reputation and not my truth?”

 

Loathe as she is to admit any weakness to her husband, his words confound her. What value could any of that nonsense he just spouted have to him?

 

“I don’t understand,” Rey says with reluctance.

 

Kylo husband leans closer. Close enough that Rey can smell him. Perhaps it just because she’s used to the stink of sweaty flesh laboring in the sun, but in contrast he smells quite… not unpleasant.

 

“That was why I chose you, Rey. I chose you because, even from that distance as you leaped from one level of the ship to another, I could see the fire in your eyes. I knew you were different. And then, when you were presented to me, you were the only one that met my gaze with anything other than need. A need for my money, a need for the security of position. No, you looked at me with a challenge. Daring me to risk choosing you.”

 

Something twists inside Rey’s chest. For a second she forgets how to breathe, then she exhales in a short snort of indignation.

 

“So that’s it, then? I’m a challenge? That’s why I was chosen? So you would have the thrill of breaking me?”

 

Kylo reaches out to stroke her cheek and she slaps his hand away without thinking about it. Then she gulps and freezes. Striking a prince, even if he’s her _husband_ , might be considered grounds for a rather drastic punishment.

 

“There it is, Rey,” he says lowly, his gaze darting from her eyes to her lips then back. “There’s that same look you gave me when I tried to kiss you during our ceremony. Truly you will make a fine wife.”

 

He steps back then and, to her infinite annoyance, strides over to her bed and flops down on it, spreading himself out with an exaggerated sigh of great comfort.

 

“An equal?” she says. “No. You lie. No man who has dozens of wives is seeking an equal, he’s simply seeking a stroke to his ego. Now get off my bed, your boots are getting dirt on the sheets.”

 

She grabs his ankle and tugs. He flops his foot from side to side, then cross one ankle over the other.

 

“Sit with me,” he says, reaching out and catching her wrist.

 

“No!”

 

She tries to pull away. He holds tighter. Waits until she really starts to struggle to tug her off balance and yank her down to the mattress next to him.

 

Then he lets her go and it would be an unacceptable show of weakness to sprint away now. No, she can’t show him that he bothers her at all. She has so little power here that the least she can do is hold onto her indifference.

 

“You’re an arrogant pig,” she snaps.

 

“And you’re a lowly garbage picker who doesn’t realize yet that I only seek an equal, not a conquest.”

 

“Do you really have such a low opinion of me?” he asks, voice quite causal despite the nature of his question. “I’m sure you shall correct me if I’m wrong, but I see nothing that I’ve done to foster such contempt.”

 

Rey tries to recoil but his hand on her wrist holds her tight.

 

“You’ve taken me away from my family!” she nearly shouts. “From the people who actually cared about me! You will keep me here in a gilded cage even though you know this is nothing that I want!”

 

His hand lets her wrist go then. She pulls it close to her chest, rubbing her skin to scrub off the feeling of his touch.

 

“Wrong.”

 

His tone is clipped, and his eyes are tired.

 

“No.”

 

“You are, Rey. Very wrong. I have saved both you and your family. Through our marriage they will have safety and security and you will have a break from the life that has made you so bitter.”

 

Indignation swells up in her. She moves to stand and he sits up, resting his palm on the inside of her thigh.

 

“You _are_ afraid, Rey. I can see it and don’t deny it. Maybe you think you are above me, then? Is that it? That we are not equals at all, because I’m too low for you now?”

 

He is doing nothing but resting against her, two layers of fabric separating her from the contact, but her face blooms into a deep blush despite herself.

 

“Or perhaps that’s not it,” his hand moves an inch higher, stopping when she catches it in her palm. “Perhaps you’re afraid you won’t be able to please me? Could that be why you take such exception to your new sisters?”

 

Oh- Now _that_ -

 

“You are an arrogant pig!” she snaps. “Do you think any of those women actually want to be with you? I can assure you that they don't’! I can assure you that every last one of them-”

 

“Is only here because of the money and power and prestige their title gives them?” he interrupts. “Yes, Rey, I’m quite aware of that. Some of them are less greedy than others. Some are less _lecherous_ in the simple needs of the flesh. But they are all vacant, cruel seductresses. Is it so wrong that I finally have realized I wish to seek something more?”

 

Rey twists her hand, trying to pick up his fingers to draw them off her. He simply threads their fingers together, linking their hands in a gesture far more intimate than their first failed kiss as husband and wive had felt.

 

“I think there are things you could gain from me as well, Rey,” he continues when she falls silent. “I am more than simply my family’s wealth and power. I could make a generous husband to you, if you would only let me.”

 

His thumb strokes along her knuckles. Rey wonders if he can feel the pounding of her heart through her skin.

 

“You’re trembling,” he says quietly.

 

Then he leans forward, his forehead resting lightly on her shoulder, and his breath fans across the narrow stripe of bared skin along the collar of her robe.

 

She swallows, her throat suddenly very dry.

 

“I am your prisoner,” she manages to say.

 

He shakes his head, his hair rustling softly against the heavy fabric of her robe.

 

“No. You’re free to go anytime you like.”

 

“I heard the lock when I was put in here.”

 

“It locks on the inside out and it _is_ for your own protection. My other wives- some of them were not so happy to hear of your impending arrival. And I have many enemies as a gift from my heritage. I will ask you to stay in the safety of your room, but I don’t require it.”

 

His hand shifts, wrapping over her own more completely.

 

“I can go?” she asks quickly. “I can go tonight? I don’t have to… to lay with you, then?”

 

Her husband falls silent. Rey can’t see his expression beyond the wall of his dark hair.

 

“You are different than the others,” he says after a long moment of silent. “I don’t want you to leave, I haven’t gotten bored of you yet.”

 

When he lifts his head up, he looks like a different man. His face is colder, his gaze shaper. His hand holds hers tightly now, keeping her where she is as she tries to pull away.

 

“You may go, Rey,” he continues. “But know that it comes with a price. Trust me when I say joining me in bed is far less of an evil then you willingly inflicting the shame and hardships of you abandoning your role upon your family.”

 

It’s a threat. Not even a veiled one, but close to outright.

 

However, the moment her expression changes from mortified and confused to afraid, his soften back in turn.

 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m sorry I can’t be the husband you want. That I can’t be a sophisticated intellectual above the matters like you are. But I’m afraid, dear wife, that you are stuck with me for the next month and I think we should find a way to make the best of it until then.”

 

She frowns and pulls on her arm. This time he lets her go and she scoots back to the edge of the bed away from him.

 

“A month?” she asks. “What happens in a month?”

 

“Then I will let you go peacefully. _Without_ consequences, this time. You will be free to use your title as my wife and go and do as you see fit. I believe you will find it will open up many doors for you.”

 

Suspicion rises in her and she eyes him warily. He sighs and slumps back, resting on his elbows against the mattress as he watches her.

 

“You’re lying,” she accuses. “You’re tricking me.”

 

He shakes his head.

 

“No, Rey. I will make a deal with here and now: you will stay with me willingly for one month. Just one month. You will treat me as a wife treats her husband and then, at the end of this, I will give you your choice to leave. But I should hope by then I may have swayed you to stay.”

 

She stares at him in open-mouthed disbelief. Is he telling the truth? Because if he’s not then he’s essentially stealing her virginity away from her then casting her aside.

 

“darling… you’re catching flies.”

 

He reaches out to lightly tap her jaw closed and cradle her cheek. She doesn't trust the heated look in his eyes. Doesn’t trust her new husband _period_.

 

“Do you promise?” she asks.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Swear to me.”

 

His eyes harden, and again he looks at her mouth before back up.

 

“I swear, my dear shrewish wife, that you will give me just one month of your attention and then you will free to go and be gone forever.”

 

He offers her his other hand. Rey stares at it, feeling off balance from the sheer weight of the deal she’s about to make.

 

“One month,” she repeats, reaching out tentatively.

 

“One month.”

 

Her hand touches his. It’s a weak handshake at best.

 

“Thirty-one days,” she says, pulling back immediately. “How bad could it be? I could endure anything for thirty-one days.”

 

Abruptly, he smiles. It’s an almost silly smile, one that seems completely incompatible with the deep frown lines etched into his still young face.

 

“Thank you for that, Rey. Exactly what every husband longs to here from his wife on their marital bed. Now close your eyes, there’s something more I still want from you.”

 

His hand waves over her face, beckoning her to obey him. Rey scowls because it seems right. Scowls to let him know that, if he’s thanking about flipping her over and ravishing her right now, he’d best prepare himself for a most cold physical reception indeed.

 

His lips are warm on her own, though.

 

A kiss. A _proper_ kiss, this time, but just a kiss and nothing more.

 

The bed creaks as his weight leaves it.

 

Rey remains motionless. Then the lock to her bedroom door clunks and her eyes pop open of their own accord.

 

“That’s- where are you going?”

 

He smiles at her question.

 

“Goodnight, Rey. Tomorrow I will send for you. Until then, sleep well.”

 

When he leaves the door locks behind him. Rey freezes, waiting and listening. Nothing. No trap is immediately sprung, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t await her at any moment.

 

She walks silently to the door, a quietness to her movements that she has honed over the course of many an encounter with a desert beastie. When she turns the doorknob, she holds her breath.

 

It clunks. It opens.

 

The hallway is dark save for a few candles burning high on the walls. In the near distance is the lyrical laugh of her new sisters.

 

Rey closes the door again and sinking to her knees, slumping against it.

 

She will try to keep her promise. Try to force herself to stay for a full month. She has a feeling, though, that it won’t be at all as easy as her husband had made it sound.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So? Off to an interesting start? This fic is going to be a very irregular update schedule, unfortunately. I’m about to head out off the grid as I often do and this time it’s for 3 months at my family’s log cabins in rural Idaho with no running water, electricity, internet, or phone reception (ie. bliss) but I’m taking my solar panels and alphasmart and will type and update when I can :)
> 
> We’re looking at 3-5 chapters, I think. Maybe MAYBE up to 7, but right now my outline’s at 3-5 and that feels right. 
> 
> And, like with my other story today, I’ve made an accompanying pic for for this fic on tumblr. You can check it out [HERE](https://lost-inthesunlight.tumblr.com/post/177135153288/for-my-newest-fic-the-path-that-moonbeams-make)  
> or drop me a line there at lost-inthesunlight.tumblr.com :)
> 
>  
> 
> ps. And no, the bitchy blonde woman who closed the door on Rey’s face wasn’t Phasma, just had to make that clear because I love Phasma! No, she’s just an OC who’s going to stir up drama for Rey, so insert any blonde Playboy model type you dislike to your vision of her character ;)


	2. So that's how it's going to be is it?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Rey gets an unexpected gift and then meets her lovely new sisters.

Rey wanted to say that she didn’t sleep a wink last night.

 

That was a lie. She didn’t like to lie, especially to herself, unless she absolutely had to.

 

Truth be told, she had _never_ slept better. It was annoying.

 

She had spent the first few minutes of waking simply laying in bed, feeling the softens under her and the warm air around her. This was dangerous. This kind of thing was acceptable to indulge in once in a blue moon, but it would make her soft. Compliant. Make her start to ask herself things like _why couldn’t it always be like this?_

 

And then came a knock at her door- and Rey had already claimed the small confines of the luxurious prison as _her_ space, thank you very much- and the guards announced that her husband had come to see her.

 

Really? _Really_?

 

It was barely even dawn. Rey had just heard the first morning’s prayer right before the rap on the heavy door. So her ‘husband’ wasn’t a religious man, then. Hardly a surprise, given his lack of morality in other areas.

 

The rap comes again. She answers with a lilting ‘who is it?’ just to annoy him because, somehow, she just _knows_ that it’s him behind the door waiting for her to let him in. Knows without knowing, but she’ll contemplate how exactly that’s even possible some other time because, right now, she hears the lock moving and turning without her.

 

So he has his own key. Of course he does. She had neglected to include that in their terms last night.

 

Kylo Ren, Crown Prince of Alderaan, her _husband_ , stomps inside her bedroom with a grandly regal swish of hideously decadent court robes and a severe case of bedhead. She may have slept like a spoiled baby last night, but whatever he had been getting up to apparently had been far less restful.

 

“You honor me with your presence so early, beloved.”

 

Rey doesn’t hold back the cloying notes of insincerity in her voice. Had she been fully awake she might have tried to be more tactful, but now all she can do is grab her dressing gown from the foot of her bed where she’d tossed it and wrap it around herself as her husband paces.

 

He turns to her after she slides out of bed and stands to face him.

 

“Since you’re such an intellectual young lady,” he says, “one so far above the dirty matters of the flesh, I have brought you an intellectual gift.”

 

There is no mistaking the matching condescension in Kylo’s tone, and Rey wrinkles her nose up in defense. Still, she bites back the start of a retort as he pulls a small wrapped item out of the silk pouch slung across his shoulders.

 

“A gift?” she asks. Fidgets.

The scavenger in her, the lowland trash picker who has for only two days been put to rest, can’t quite mask its intrigue. Things are precious, no matter how small or malevolently intended. After her trial here is over, perhaps she could sell whatever it is. Anything coming directly from the Prince should fetch a fair price based on his name regardless.

 

Kylo watches her in silence, his expression calm and studious. It makes her wonder how much her face was giving away of her anticipation. Again, quite annoying.

 

Then both his voice and body language softens by degrees.

 

“Here, Rey,” he says. “I hope this helps you remember your time here more fondly.”

 

He hands the parcel in his hands to her and steps back. Rey ponders the square-shaped item before carefully unwrapping the heavily embroidered fabric it’s covered in.

 

A leather-wrapped tome falls into her hands. She blinks at it, then back up at Kylo. His face gives her nothing. She turns it around then over, inspecting the spine before flipping through the bound pages.

 

“It’s blank,” she says after a moment.

 

“It’s a _journal_. Your uncle had said you liked to imagine great stories as a child, I thought you might like the chance to write them down here. Or, perhaps, simply to put your current thoughts to paper and keep your own account of the state of our marriage.”

 

Rey’s growing sense of excitement is immediately crushed by that last word. He had been doing rather well until then, only to remind her in an instant of the unpleasantness of how she came to be here at all.

 

And yet…

 

“Why did you give this to me?”

 

Rey wishes she could read her husband’s face. Ideally, read his mind. But now when he blinks, Rey thinks she sees a hint of sadness along the crease of his brow that shouldn’t be there. She’s said something to offend him, then? Interesting that he can be offended at all, or maybe he just finds her confusion tedious.

 

Kylo clears his throat. Opens his mouth. Then closes it and shakes his head.

 

“Would you like to have breakfast with me?” he asks.

 

It’s Rey’s turn to blink. She was very hungry, in fact. The last she had eaten was a single hard-to-swallow lump of their wedding cake the afternoon before. After Kylo’s visit last night someone had knocked on her door and asked if she would like dinner but she had buried her head under the bedsheets and refused to answer.

 

Was the book a bribe, then? Oh here, have a little piece of something and now you have to give e your time in thanks?

 

It would almost work. Not now, but before. Scavenger Rey would have been far more amiable then the lady he’s tried to marry her into becoming.

 

“I’d rather dine alone,” she says after a moment.

 

Kylo’s jaw tightens. Displeasure. She had seen that on him before and now she deliberately commits it to memory. Like any prey, she must learn his tells so she knows how far to react or run.

 

His posture straightens. Rey hadn’t noticed until now that he’d been subtly edging closer and leaning forward, but that’s all over in an instant as his true nature returns to him.

 

“Very well, wife,” he says. “But I shall have you brought to the harem in an hour or so, and I expect you to go there without complaint. Your sisters are very anxious to meet you, I understand.”

 

Rey fidgets, her thumbs absently stroking the smooth leather of the journal in her hands. It was… well, she knew how to read and write. Uncle Luke had assured her a higher level of education than most women when she had come under his care, but as of now she has less than an idea what to write in its pages. The luxurious cloth it was wrapped in, on the other hand, might fetch her a full week’s worth of meals if she was sly with her bargaining for it.

 

“What am I supposed to do there?” she asks. “What is expected of me?”

 

They had never discussed that last night when their arrangement was being made. Had hardly discussed anything, in fact, other than Rey’s distaste for everything her new husband holds dear and his odd compulsion to sway her regardless.

 

Kylo smiles, then. It’s not a nice sort of smile, and Rey stands up a little taller to try and match him despite their height difference.

 

“They will teach you what is expected of you as a wife, my dear Rey. But don’t worry-” he reaches out to cup her chin and Rey has to fight very hard the urge to smack him with _her_ new book, “-there are certain lessons that only I am allowed to impart to you.”

 

A shiver runs down her spine from the warmth of his touch mixing with the coldness of his words. Then he lets go of her and steps back, straightening his own grand robes smooth in a gesture that clearly signals he’s about to take his leave.

 

“What in the hells does that mean?” she asks, stepping quickly backwards.

 

The glint in his eye stays as he turns from her, his robes swirling behind his movements like a cloak of shadows.

 

“You’ll see, darling. Until then, enjoy your meal.”

 

With that, the door closes behind him, the lock automatically clicking into place. Rey stays frozen to the spot, staring at the space where her husband had just occupied.

 

He’s… he’s mocking her. He must be. But, for the life of her, Rey can’t figure out why. Why bother to fluster a piece of desert trash? Why pick on her when there were so many others he could have chosen who would have been better suited to any aspect of her new life?

 

He’d said he’d felt a connection. He’d seen it, or so he claimed, as she’d ran and leaped between one relic and another. Loathe as she was to admit it, Rey had felt it too. His touch on her chin or wrist the night before… there had been more to it than simple skin to skin contact. It was nothing she had experienced before and she couldn’t deny how it had piqued her curiosity.

 

But then, of course, his words had done just the opposite. So he _did_ expect things of her during this sham of a marriage, then? Why? With all the women he had literally at his disposal, why couldn’t he see fit to simply leave her alone and in peace?

 

And what about the other wives? Her “sisters”? What was this new business to come with them?

 

A knock comes from the other side of the door. Rey’s eyes flick to it, still standing rigid as she had been before, and she waits for the knob to turn.

 

It doesn’t, but the knock repeats.

 

“Who is it?” she calls out, clutching the journal to herself even tighter.

 

“Breakfast, m’lady.”

 

A woman’s voice. An older woman’s voice. Presumably one of the staff, because Rey highly doubts Kylo would have anyone over a ‘certain age’ within his harem.

 

Rey takes a deep sigh, steels herself, then opens the door and accepts the tray of pastries and rare fruit she’s never seen the likes of. She should eat. If what her _husband_ says is true, today she’ll need all the strength she can find to endure through it.

 

*

Rey hadn’t been within the harem for all of five minutes before she was cornered by a gang of vicious hyenas.

 

“Is your room to your liking, sister?” one of them asks Rey, pretending she isn’t looming down upon her and forming a literal wall of verbal assault.

 

“I’m sure that it is,” another answers for her. “Our husband gave you your own suite, imagine that. A full set of rooms all your very own.”

 

“Imagine indeed,” the third chimes in. “And on your first day of marriage, no less. I’ve been here two years and I _still_ have to share. The Prince of Alderaan must have truly taken a liking to you.”

 

“Or maybe felt sorry for you. Perhaps that. Understandable, don’t you agree, sisters?”

 

A hum of concurrence rises and Rey rolls her eyes.

 

She had been brought there shortly before the noon-time prayer call, and she had tried and failed to keep a low profile in the dimly lit, interlinking chambers of the harem. But of course every last woman in the place had turned to watch her arrival. Arrival followed almost immediately by an abduction by a gang of harpies who wanted a ‘quick little chat’ with her.

 

“My room is fine,” she finally says. “And if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t speak of it to you anyhow.”

 

With that, Rey pushes her way through the gang. They try to stand firm, but when she shoves hard enough that they have no choice but to part or be knocked over. She stumbles past them, narrowly avoiding an outstretched foot designed to trip her.

 

Juvenile. Pathetic and juvenile and still rather upsetting. This was worse than she had been expecting.

 

The rest of the sisters in the room watch without comment or interference. Some of them smirk meanly, though whether it’s at Rey or the trio of bullies she isn’t sure. Others of them scowl or simply roll their eyes, going back to simple busywork crafts or sometimes nothing at all.

 

Rey moves quickly to get distance, but projects an air of strength as she goes. Lets the others see she won’t be bullied without a fight.

 

Behind her one of the three mutters a less than hidden ‘garbage picking scum’ but Rey keeps her chin up, moving out from the side room she had been trapped in to return to the center bathhouse. The harem, as it turned out, was an expansive network of small and large chambers, all built like spokes around a spacious swimming pool. How the palace managed to provide heated waters for the bath was a mystery, and Re would have sorely longed to take a dip in it if it wasn’t for the company she would have had to keep.

 

Instead, she crosses the slippery marble floors with care, not daring to look back or to the sides or any ways other than forwards. Now, in the daylight hours, the harem appears to be half full. When not squabbling with her or cattily gossiping about each other, the remaining sisters in here seem to spend their time lounging about and doing little else. It was an odd notion to Rey. To simply exist and do nothing more.

 

Some of them quite frankly appear to be on drugs, their glassy eyes staring up at the murals and painted ceiling. Others preen themselves or eat or play instruments with varying degree of skill. There were no men this time, though that might have had more to do with the hour of the day.

 

Rey is the only one in the small library wing of the harem. Apparently reading was either beyond or beneath the rest of her sisters, and the choice of reading material still leaves much to be desired. Ship’s logs. Maps and scriptures. Dry accounts of a stranger’s travels to faraway lands. Rey had hoped for something more engaging to while away the time, but she still buries her nose in a book titled “Tales from Tatooine” as a new group of voices enters the room directly outside of the small reading alcove.

 

There are five of them, judging by the sound of their footfall. Rey can smell the expensive perfume wafting in their advance, and she tucks her feet up onto the bench and out of sight of the passersby as she listens to their conversation. A conversation which, predictably, seems to be about the latest addition to the sisterhood.

 

“-not much at all. Skinny. Coarse. Very tanned.”

 

“Ugly, then?”

 

“Yes, ugly.”

 

“No… er, not quite ugly. She might have been pretty. Once. We’ll need to groom it back into her.”

 

“Potential, then.”

 

“Why bother? He didn’t stay with her last night. Not even for an hour. He’s probably tired of her already.”

 

The voices stop outside the library. Rey narrows her eyes and squints through a small gap in the curtain divider. Immediately she recognizes the scowling face of one of the three that had cornered her. She and three others are facing someone who’s head is hidden but there’s that long sweep of blonde hair that she’d seen the night before.

 

“She tried to attack me,” the dark haired one says. “Or- or she nearly did. She shoved me for no reason. We should complain. I don’t have to put up with this.”

 

“Complain? To whom?” The blonde’s voice is regal, each syllable annunciated perfectly. “The guards barely interfere when we turn against each other, let alone protect us from a newcomer. And Kylo doesn’t care. No, sisters, we handle this amongst ourselves.”

 

Interesting. She, the blonde, called him Kylo. Before the others had used his title. Rey edges as close to the curtain as she can, hunching low and trying to get a clearer look at everyone’s faces.

 

The darker girl who she’d disagreeably met before. Two brunettes, both very similar in appearance enough to be sisters or perhaps not quite. A slim, petite redhead with an angelic face and prodigious bosom. And the tall blonde who towers a good hand above them and her back is to Rey.

 

“She’s a lowlife garbage picker, Nevan,” the dark one with the grudge against her argues. “She shouldn’t even be here at all. It’s embarrassing to have her here.”

 

The two brunettes nod in unison. The redhead chews on her finger. A feeling of suspense hangs in the air. Clearly they’re waiting for their leader to do something.

 

“Kylo chose her himself,” the blonde reminds them. “We must-”

 

“We could ambush her in the night. Put a good scare or worse into her and watch her run. She won’t be the first sister we’ve scared off.”

 

This time it’s one of the two brunettes that speaks out. The shiney blonde head shakes, the hair swaying from side to side and skimming the center waist of the jeweled dress she’s wearing.

 

“Hush, sister. Our newest recruit may be swayed to useful still, she might just need to be… corrected out of certain bad habits. And remember that always the walls have ears.”

 

The blonde turns. From Rey’s vantage perch she catches only a brief glimpse of a glittering ruby necklace spilling down white skin and a deep neckline.

 

Then the curtain of the walls is snatched aside and Rey can’t stop herself from squeaking embarrassingly as her hiding spot is revealed.

 

“Hello, sister,” the blonde says to her. “I didn’t see you there.”

 

“Hi,” Rey offers back meekly.

 

Behind the leader the other four women stand close and united. The dark haired one and the brunettes glare with open contempt. Only the redhead girl looks away, and Rey stops herself from hoping for anything other than another enemy.

 

“You’ve met Serena, if I’m not mistaken.” Behind the blonde the darkest haired girl flushes, her lips pressing together tightly until they’re just a thin line on her otherwise perfect face. “These two are Ayana and Helana.”

 

She gestures at the two brunettes. Upon closer scrutiny, Rey can now see that they don’t actually look all that much alike aside from their hair color. They both sport the same hairstyle, two braided twists wound around the sides of their head, and a similar sort of Grecian sheer robe. Almost as if they were styled to look like the same person, though it came as a small relief to Rey that they seemingly aren’t actually related to one another. At least her new husband has that much of decency.

 

“I’m Nevan,” the blonde continues as Rey stays mute-silent. “Welcome to my harem, sister.”

 

Rey assumes she’s supposed to respond to this statement, grand and outstanding as it’s been offered. She nods, her hands fidgeting at the book on her lap.

 

“You can read, then?” Nevan asks.

 

Behind her Serena huffs and the other three exchange a look amongst themselves.

 

“Of course.”

 

Rey knew this wasn’t the most common of skill, particularly among her sex, but surely the rest of the harem had been educated to-

 

“You can read to us stories then, sister, during the quieter times. Often Kylo or his men will call upon our services, but some nights we have only ourselves to entertain. We used to have an knowledged sister before, and she would read to us then as well.”

 

Nevan takes a step back. Rey glances down at the Tales book. Despite its title, the stories inside were more archival in nature and would hardly make for gripping reading matter.

 

“Used to have?” she asks, setting the book back on the shelf behind her. “Where is she now?”

 

A beat passes between her and the clutter of women. Somehow Rey seems to have asked exactly the wrong question. Or, more correctly, was lead into asking it.

 

“She fell ill,” Nevan says. “She is unfortunately no longer with us.”

 

The redheaded sister still unnamed takes a step back, her eyes still downcast. She looks younger than the rest, Rey notes, though they were all still youthful including Nevan.

 

“Kylo said that-” Rey starts to say, only to be stopped immediately by a swift raise of Nevan’s hand.

 

“He is still the Prince to you, new wife. Only his favorite is allowed to call him by his first name. Remember that as your first lesson.”

 

Favorite? A piece of the puzzle clicks into place at that, as well as a memory of the warning her husband the _Prince_ had given her. Some of the sisters weren’t happy to hear of his latest marriage. And perhaps other marriages before theirs.

 

“Well?” Nevan asks, interrupting Rey’s thoughts. “Are you ready, sister?”

 

The two brunette “twins” step away then, disappearing deeper into the shadows of the bathhouse. Rey realizes that the other wives which had been frolicking in the waters have disappeared during the last few minutes.

 

“Ready for what?” Rey asks, mentally sizing up her chances.

 

She’s a fine fighter, of that she’s not unsure, but she is also outnumbered. Potentially greatly so, depending on how far the rest of the wives have gone off to.

 

The edges of Nevan’s mouth curl up. Rey has to admit, with great and deep reluctance, that she truly is a spectacularly beautiful woman. If she was a man, she would probably desire her as the head wife, too.

 

“For your first etiquette lesson, Rey,” she answers coolly. “Or your second, now that you know how to properly address our husband. _K_ _ylo_ has entrusted me to teach you as I have taught all of my sisters. I’m sure with as clever as you are you will be a very quick study.”

 

Etiquette. Even the word makes Rey swallow. Uncle Luke had tried to teach her a few pieces of what might be considered “etiquette” during her younger years, but she had resolutely rebelled from anything she found too restrictive. Which, it had turned out, was never every rule specific to her gender.

 

“I don’t think-”

 

“We’ll start with a trip to the barbers. I’ve been told from your wedding attendants that you were rather… unkempt.”

 

Nevan’s hand flutters over the direction of Rey’s everything from the neck down. _That_ had been another point of contention putting her in an extra cranky mood on her wedding day. In addition to painting her and wrapping her, the assigned attendants had attempted to wax her. Make her sparkle and shine like a fruit waiting to be plucked. They hadn’t gotten very far with their attempt.

 

“Maybe you should take her to the groomers instead,” Serena, the dark haired one, chirps from the background. “She might be more comfortable with someone used to barn animals.”

 

Nevan glares back over her shoulder and the mean spirited sister backs down, smirk remaining fixed in place.

 

The blonde turns to leave and Rey follows with reluctance, keeping one eye behind her as she’s lead to a new part of the harem. Lessons. Learning what she needs to know. If Rey was inclined to be rational, it would make a degree of sense. She has to pretend to be a respectable lady for one month. She certainly doesn’t know how to do that on her own, hence the need for _the lessons._

 

Lesson one. Call your own husband by his title because he’s a spoiled prat.

Lesson two. Resist the urge to play ‘an eye for an eye’ with a barber and pot of scalding hot paraffin.

Lesson three…

 

Well, Rey doesn’t know what lesson three is, but now she’s very afraid to ask.

 

Without another word Rey’s new gang of sisters escorts her deeper into the network of chambers, further from the door and the dubious safety of her bedroom. In an odd sort of way Rey quite wishes her husband would show up and rescue her right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back after a long break. I’ve decided to let this story be longer if it wants to be and just have fun with it. There’s a plot under all this drama, sure, but let’s just enjoy the atmospheric ride right?  
> Bunch of OCs mentioned here. None from the Star Wars universe and I think these five named wives are going to be the ones with the most screentime so it doesn’t get too confusing. There are like a ton more, just these five will be the main bitch squad of opposition.  
> And, for those not familiar with ancient era terminology, a barber used to be the word for an all around doctor/dentist/aesthetician. Old timey barbers did a little bit of everything back in the day.
> 
> Next chapter:  
> Rey’s etiquette lessons continue, and so does the Showgirls-style sisterhood. And then Kylo, Prince of Alderaan, comes to check up on his latest spouse and blood runs hot in more ways than one.
> 
> ps. Anyone get the name Nevan? C’mon, it wasn’t that long ago. Like, in No Rest for the Wicked, I had a bunch of early 90s references but Nevan was recent enough some of you young whippersnappers here should get it…. (I say hopefully)


	3. Curiosity Can be a Curious Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Rey gets a new hairdo, gets an eyeful, and then meets a very unexpected stranger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, this is a pre-chapter PSA from me regarding the content of this story. I’ve realized that I might have unintentionally mislead people on what to expect from this fic. Several of the comments I got last chapter made me realize I’ve made an error with this fic and I want to take a moment to clear some things up.  
> I've updated the tags now with polyamory and multiple partners. This is not a revenge story but rather one that explores these elements and the complicated political relationships of the harem While ultimately this is a love story, I understand that these themes may not be what some people are comfortable with reading. For those of you who are sticking with this story after this warning, thank you and know that I really appreciate your interest! I have, I think, a fun and unusual plot in mind that’s going to be very different from my usual writing so I hope you like it too!

It quickly became obvious to Rey why her new husband allowed a male barber to be alone around his wives.

 

Don’t get her wrong, Mitaka was pleasant enough. He was clean, professional, and yet still casually friendly to make the light smalltalk almost required by his job.

 

He also, quite obviously, had no interest in her or anyone else of her sex. Possibly there had been a certain adjustment made to him, Rey had heard of such things happening, but it was far too improper for her to ask.

 

Then they came to the manner of her current appearance.

 

“So,” Mitaka says, “typically the wives go for ‘nothing below the neck’ but I’ve been told that-”

 

“I’ll handle my _grooming_ myself, thank you,” Rey snaps.

 

Her tone comes across as sharper than she had intended, but the barber simply nods and begins to prepare a small, leather bound kit of various supplies to give to her. Rey eyes it warily, pondering both the potential usefulness of the straight razor included in the bundle as well as the possibility that some of her other lovely sisters may be similarly armed.

 

“What’s with all the fixation about my body hair?” she mumbles as she accepts the parcel. “Surely there are far more important things for us ‘ladies of leisure’ to be spending our time on?”

 

To that Mitaka cracks a lopsided smile.

 

“You might be surprised how wrong you are about that, M’Lady. Now let’s discuss how to do your hair. Unlike everything else,” Mitaka gestures quickly across the length of her, “for your hair Lord Kylo has certain preferences that I’m to advise upon.”

 

Rey narrowed her eyes at that, her knuckles tightening as her fingers squeezed the leather parcel.

 

“Pref- you mean requirements, don’t you? He simply couldn’t let us choose for ourselves, could he?”

 

Mitaka visibly seems surprised, his eyebrows raising high and almost disappearing into his groomed hairline.

 

“As… as a lady of the court, it’s customary to observe certain traditions to your appearance. Having your hair loose or unkempt is… er...”

 

Rey sighs and loosens her grip on the parcel. The poor barber seems so uncomfortable that she opts to take a moment of pity on him. It’s not like it’s _his_ , fault, anyhow.

 

“Fine then. What’s it to be?”

 

Mitaka nods and immediately steps closer, parting her hair swiftly down the center line of her scalp as if he feels an urge to hurry before she changes her mind. He combs it straight, applying an odd but not unpleasant scented oil to it that makes it shine in the muted daylight from the windows high above the small ablutions room they were in.

 

Rey sighs and allows this, feeling half like a placated pet and half enjoying the strange concept of someone doing something strictly for her benefit. It’s only when the barber begins to swirl and then pin half of her hair into a high, rounded bun above her ear that she catches his hand to stop him.

 

“What in the hells is that?” she asks.

 

Her reflection staring back at her in the mirror looks ridiculous. Ridiculous and sulky, but to Mitaka’s credit his face gives nothing away.

 

“This side-parted style of updo is one of Lord Kylo’s favorite hairstyles for his wives. I’d thought you might like to try it and surprise him with-”

 

“Oh gods no.”

 

Rey quickly pulls the pins out, her hair flopping back to her shoulders in a shiny spiral. Mitaka’s hands hover but don’t touch, the fingers twitching slightly as if he’s genuinely itching to continue with his masterpiece.

 

This was the same style that Rey had seen the two brunette wives wear. The ones that had tried to look and dress like each other. It was… icky. Quite. And the fact that her _Kylo_ was apparently fond of the strange hairdo was enough to make Rey immediately despise it.

 

“Pick something else,” Rey asks, tempering her voice to make it sound less like an order. “Something practical that won’t get in the way if I need to make a break for it and get the hell out of here.”

 

Mitaka’s eyes widen in increments. He doesn’t seem quite able to gauge her seriousness or not.

 

“M’lady?” he eventually settles upon.

 

Rey picks up the comb from the table and begins to sweep her hair back into a ponytail as she debates whether to go for one bun or three. Mitaka allows this for only a moment before he begins to correct her, straightening and smoothing down the haphazardly lumpy sides of her hair before placing the top knot much higher up by her crown then she normally would do. Together, with a negotionary mix of silence and subtle ‘allow me M’lady’s’, they come to a treaty with an annoyingly elegant swept back updo framed by soft curls and a good few dozen nearly invisible pins. This was followed by a subtle but skillful application of rogue to her lips and cheeks and an inky line of kohl over her eyelashes and flicked out along the edges of her lids.

 

When Mitaka steps back, it’s with an air of pride and satisfaction.

 

“What do you think?” he asks. “Do you believe you can run for your life in this?”

 

He’s joking. Rey hopes. But she also barely recognizes the sweet and fresh face that stares back at her.

 

“I look so… pretty.”

 

Rey isn’t sure how she feels about that last word. Mityaka’s smile grows. She leans forward, studying herself more closely. As much as she absolutely hates to admit it, she looks romantic and lovely. She didn’t look like this on her wedding day. No, then she had been smothered in war paint by a nameless attendant with a heavy hand. Now she looks like a more charming version of herself, and somehow that’s so much worse.

 

Her barber waits, hovering. Rey sighs before, for his sake, admitting that she likes it.

 

“Do I have to do this everyday?” she asks.

 

She hadn’t kept track of the time, but it had felt like it had taken a while. Granted more than half of that had been spent with Rey squirming or negotiating about the final result, but time was time and she should be doing…

 

Doing what? So far her first day as a married woman had been spent watching for a knife at her back around her new sisters and just sitting around breathing. Surely there had to be something more, wouldn’t there?

 

“In the beginning, yes,” Mitaka answers. “Over time I can teach you how to do much of this for yourself and I’ll only visit for special events. Or, of course, I can come by every day and we can have a nice, quiet hour or two in here. That is if you won’t miss your sisters too much.”

 

Rey cracks up then, giving her head a vigorous shake from side to side to test out the tensile strength of her updo. A clearing of a throat behind her stops her, and dozen or two more pins is applied to correct the movement.

 

After a moment, Rey quietly dismisses him. Time’s wasting and she might as well get back to doing all that nothing.

 

*

 

After Mitaka had left, gone to paint and fluff another sister, Rey had been once again left at a loose end.

 

She couldn’t stay cringing here in this little washroom forever, she knew that. But she delays her departure as long as she possibly can, spending far more minutes than she ever has before with tidying up her appearance.

 

She’d said it before but now she still means it: she looks pretty. Damnit. She likes how she looks.

 

This is terrible. This is going to make her soft and vain. As diaphanous as her gown and the spirit of her sisters.

 

Rey leaves the room with a grimace, bracing herself for another ambush either by Nevan and her gang or some of the other dozen women she hasn’t had the displeasure to informally meet yet.

 

Instead, her return into the main room of the harem is met without ceremony. Oh, a few frowns and rolls of the eyes follow her careful movements, but for the most part the other women in there seem more preoccupied with themselves or nothing at all. Some turn from Rey as she walks, nearly literally giving her the cold shoulder. It’s catty and childish but that’s fine, too. It’s not like Rey was looking for friendship and being shunned might well be better than being _noticed_.

 

She walks lightly, the soft satin of her slippers barely making a sound against the woven rugs or smooth marble of the floor. Now that it’s past mid-day and her welcome committee has already done their assault on her, Rey takes the opportunity to explore the many chambers of the harem at her leisure. The library wasn’t much. Disappointingly threadbare, but perhaps- no, she’s not going to ask Kylo for better books. She’s going to _tell_ him to provide better. He doesn’t get the option to deny this request anymore than she got the option to stay in her bedroom for the full remainder of her time here.

 

The harem is more expansive than she realized, and it seems to be built around a spoke design with the central pool room forming the hub for a network of side passages. It would be quite easy to get lost in here and, more than once, Rey has to fight back her natural instinct to quickly pocket every valuable looking piece of decoration or shiny bauble that catches her eye.

 

One side of the harem appears to be some sort of dorm room. Rey peeks in, seeing a trio of beds and a spacious armoire. No one is there at the moment, but the room looks lived in and that prompts her to hurry on. This room was followed by two more, similar rooms, the last of which has murmured voices speaking in a foreign tongue. Apparently her having her own room all to herself really was a subject of oddity.

 

Rather than ponder that, Rey leaves this wing of the harem entirely and works her way around to the far side. Here the rooms take on a different quality. The furnishings are plusher and the lights dimmer. Few windows brighten the space and the walls are richly tapestried in silks and velvet. The whole space has a tactile feeling to it that makes Rey blush without completely knowing why.

 

There are sounds here, too. A woman’s voice. No, _women’s_ voices. And a man’s, too. Not one that she recognizes and,even though Rey hardly knows more than the smallest fraction of the residents to the palace, this voice has an oddly posh lilt to it that makes Rey swallow as her mind began to fill in the blanks.

 

Despite herself, Rey keeps going deeper as curiosity takes over from common sense. When she arrives at the furthest room at the end of the corner, the door is open a crack and voices are coming from within. They’re no longer talking, though. Moreso one of the female voices is… Rey can’t think how to describe it other than making short little cries that sound like they have nothing to do with pain.

 

She cringes and turns away, but her feet won’t let her take more than a few steps before they stop for her. The sounds continue and her ears are both burning and suddenly hypersensitive. The man’s voice murmuring something low and indistinct. A slap of flesh. An odd clink. More moans and then another voice, the one from the second woman, laughing lyrically.

 

It’s not as if Rey has no notion of the relation between men and women but… but… up until that brief glimpse last night and then now, she had never been exposed to it so directly.

 

And how could there possibly be more than two people involved at all? Like… how would that _work_? There simply doesn’t seem to be a plausible way.

 

Rey’s curiosity only grows with the lurid sounds. It creeps its way into her veins, suffusing her with an almost palpable temptation. Just take a peek. One little glimpse. It will be disgusting. Horrible. You’ll never want to see this again. But then you’ll know and you’ll never have to wonder about _that_ evermore.

 

Rey looks back over her shoulder. The hallway is as empty as she came to it. In the far distance is the soft sound of music. Unskilled music. One of her sisters must be trying her hand at doing something beyond simply existing.

 

Hopefully the incompetent performance in the bathing room will be enough to keep the rest of the wives distracted, because now Rey simply can’t resist the urge to voyeurism any longer.

 

She creeps back, silent as the still of the night, and toes the door open another inch.

 

Inside the room is dim save for the flickering light of an overhead candelabra. A pale, redheaded man that Rey recalls having a place of prominence during her wedding, is rocking his hips into a naked woman from behind. No, not just any woman, one of the sisters that had ambushed her with Nevan earlier.

 

It’s the one that had her hair in that awkward side bun style. Ayana, if Rey remembers right. Her pseduo-twin is there as well, except she’s still clothed. Half-clothed, more accurately. Her lower half is pooled in chiffon while her full breasts are exposed to the air. They sway softly as she reaches tot he side, dragging a strange sort of lamp closer to herself.

 

Oh. It’s not a lamp, it’s some manner of pipe. The woman, Helana, presses her lips to a tube coming out of it and inhales deeply. Then she collapses back against the cushions of the lounge she’s on, her limbs spread lethargically as she watches her sister being rutted into.

 

This was too much. Rey holds her breath as she back away, leaving the door slightly ajar because she’s suddenly afraid to touch it in fear that something would happen to her. What she doesn’t know, but her departure wasn’t a moment too soon. Two new voices start echoing down the hallway, and Rey quickly darts through a small door to hide.

 

She leaves it open just a crack, and it affords her enough light to see that she’s in some sort of closet or small store room. Odd vials line the shelves, sharing space with swaths of the same thin, sheer fabric her and the other wives clothes are made of. There’s a pipe as well that looks similar to the one she just saw Helana smoking from. Nothing is in it, but when she gives a curious sniff she catches notes of something very spicy and dark.

 

And, oh, there are books on the shelves too. But, before Rey can investigate, the voices draw nearer and she cringes back, hiding herself against the deepest shadows of the small space.

 

From her small view she sees Nevan and the redhead girl whose name she never was given. At first she thinks they are walking hand in hand, but as they pass Rey can see that Nevan is holding the girl’s wrist and guiding her down the hall. They move together to a room that lays opposite the sisters and the man where, judging by the sounds now echoing, it seems like events are reaching some sort of crescendo. That door, which happens to be the room next to Rey’s closet, opens and closes, leaving whatever they are getting into together as a mystery.

 

Rey wastes no more time. Her depraved sojourn into this wing of the harem has left her feeling both uncomfortable and distinctly odd. She’s borne witness to something she had no right to see, but somehow couldn’t compel herself to look away. Now though, she’s seen more than enough. Rey grabs a book before she leaves. It has a blank cover and no title on the spine, and she seizes one of the vials as well as her inner scavenger takes over to guide her out of this mess.

 

Never would she have imagined the central bathhouse of the harem would be such a welcome sight. Inside the air is clearer, the whole room brighter and less intimidatingly intimate. It’s pleasantly cool after the heated depths of the back rooms and here her sisters only glance at her and then go back to bathing or lounging or badly playing a harp. In short, they go back to behaving _normally_ and that at least Rey can understand.

 

Even still, she wants to leave. No, she _n_ _eeds_ to. Needs to be alone for a moment to calm her burning cheeks and racing heart. Her room would do, or perhaps that pleasant-seeming garden she had been lead through earlier.

 

No one tries to stop her when she leaves through the entrance from the harem. Rey had been bracing herself for a fight. A physical one, if necessary, or in the least a war of wills.

 

Instead there is a trio of guards standing by the entrance who seem either surprised or unemotive to her sudden appearance outside the harem walls.

 

Rey glances between the three of them nervously, but when they make no move to stop or question her, she gathers her nerve and strides past, picking a direction randomly without thinking.

 

The guards murmur amongst themselves in a foreign language, and then one of them falls into place behind her. Rey eyes him warily, but he makes no move to guide her. Her shadow then, and it’s not like Rey knows where she’s going anyhow so she allows it.

 

Her feet seem to propel her forward of their own accord, just like they had earlier. This time, however, instead of taking her to an erotic display, they lead her straight to that garden that she had been seeking.

 

It’s a lovely place, even more beautiful in the day then it had been at night. Flowering vines line the walls, cascading all the way up to a massive skylight letting in the mid-afternoon sun. The whole space is bright and cheerful. Such a far cry from the harem in every way. Aside from Rey and her shadowy protector, the room is empty and the adjoining hallways are blessedly silent.

 

Rey sighs deeply, inhaling the sweet scent of the flowers and the brief reprieve the garden offers. She takes a seat on a marble bench next to a small fountain and closes her eyes. Here, in this quiet place, Rey almost feels at peace.

 

It’s a short lived peace, however. She only sits in silence for a few moments before the creaking of her guard’s armor breaks her out of her spell.

 

The guard, face hidden by the traditional Alderaan Palace mask, stands in front of her now. His stance and his cape are wide, and it takes Rey barely a moment to realize that he’s standing in such a way to hide her from the sight of any passersby.

 

“Lady Rey,” the guard addresses.

 

It’s a more familiar address than the previously customary M’lady. The man’s voice is somewhat muffled by the mask, but it’s one Rey faintly recognizes. She’s heard it before but she can’t place exactly where.

 

Her pulse begins to pick up as the man stoops lower, still towering over her sitting form.

 

“What is it?” she whispers, her eyes darting behind him to the still-empty hallway.

 

“I have a message for you,” he tells her, his voice conspiratorially low. “But first you must promise to speak of what I’m about to say to no one. Do you agree?”

 

Rey stares at him, baffled with disbelief. Is this a test? It feels like it could be a test, but to what end she can’t begin to imagine.

 

Still, though, only one way to find out.

 

Hesitantly she nods, standing up to both conceal herself in the mysterious guard’s shadow and face whatever he’s about to say head on. Somehow, deep in her gut, Rey just _knows_ that her situation is about change, but will it be for the better or worse?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wheee, a little more intrigue! Catty sister-wife drama is fun and all, but I think this story needed a little something extra to up the stakes. So what’s this guard all about? Well, you’ll find out next chapter, as well as loverboy hubby coming back onto camera. How’s his and Rey’s next encounter going to go? Well this is a romance, after all, so hopefully what I have in mind will be fun and a little surprising too!


	4. And How the Plot Thickens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Rey meets a face from the past, rolls around on the floor with her husband, and nearly dies of embarrassment. Then the end of a long and trying day brings with it yet another unexpected development.

The guard, a black clad shape more apparition than man, watches Rey through the concealed eyes of his helmet.

 

Her pulse starts to increase, an odd sort of unease gripping her. She fidgets, lightly feeling for the metal indentation of the barber’s blade. She has hidden it in the sleeves of her robe but, if this stranger means her ill, it would hardly do more than scratch the surface of his durasteel armor.

 

“My message?” she asks, hesitant but also unwilling to prolong the moment more than it’s already built up to.

 

The guard hesitates. Then he nods, the gesture nearly imperceptible and hidden by his armor. A gloved hand extends, ostensibly held out to help her to her feet, but when she carefully takes it something is pressed into her palm.

 

“Your uncle has been called back, _Rey_. Your days here may be numbered very soon.”

 

The words don’t immediately hit home. Rey blinks, pulling away but the hand on her own only tightens, something solid now digging in to her skin.

 

“My Uncle? How-”

 

Her eyes widen as the realization dawns. The guard nods, letting go of her hand and straightening up. In the near distance voices echo. Someone is coming and the guard, her uncle’s messenger, quickly steps back to a less compromising proximity.

 

“W-what does he want from me?” she whispers. “I have no power here. I can’t help him.”

 

“For you to know that you’re not alone, Rey. There are those among us who are close and you are not alone.”

 

The voices move closer then, nearly around the corner to the entrance of the courtyard. Rey stands quickly, smoothing down her dress and robe out of a reflex to try to look halfway presentable. As a dirt covered scavenger it was a deeply ingrained habit, though now as a ‘lady’ she realized it only perhaps made her look rather wayward.

 

Her guard sinks further away, now standing nearly across the room from her. Again something about him strikes her as familiar, and his message helps pinpoint her compass to the right memory.

 

“Poe?” the voices echo closer and she takes a step more near before he raises a hand up to ward her back. “Poe, _what in the gods_ are you-”

 

“Have the shipment prepared by tomorrow. See to it yourself personally, Captain, or I’ll have no choice but-”

 

It was the redheaded man she had seen bedding two of her sisters earlier. He is walking next to a mountain of gleaming metal that, through contextual clues, Rey assumes is some sort of ‘Captain’. They both stop and stare at her, whatever they were saying forgotten.

 

“Hello,” Rey says timidly. “You were at my wedding, weren’t you?”

 

The redheaded man straightens. 

 

“Indeed. What are you doing out here? I had expected this area to be empty.”

 

Rey blinks. He had some sort of plan in here, did he? But then his eyes start to roam over her, and she draws her robe tighter across the sheer gown she has underneath.

 

“I wanted to take a walk,” she answers.

 

The man’s gaze lingers rudely at places below her chin.

 

“Will you be in the harem later, then?”

 

Rey’s eyes widen, but she can’t give the game away. Already Poe’s hands are tightening into firsts, and the redhead man and his companion turns their attention to him. An eyebrow is raised and Rey can practically hear the gears turning in their heads.

 

“Perhaps, but how may I address you if I see you?” 

 

She gives a polite curtsy, remembering the mannerisms of her brief encounter with the upperclass during her wedding just one night ago. 

 

Whoever this man is, his ego must be sufficiently bolstered by her flowerly words. His chest puffs out slightly, and again his gaze flicks to the small triangle of flesh exposed at the collar of her robe.

 

“General Hux,” he informs her crisply, “ we _had_ been introduced, you know, but I supposed you were too head over heels in wedded bliss to remember.”

 

With that he turns and stomps past them out one of the many doors. He’s followed at a distance by the Captain, and Rey can feel a weight of suspicion hang in the air behind them.

 

No sooner than they leave out of suspected earshot does Rey scamper forward, only to be again brushed back by Poe’s gesture.

 

“Enjoy your walk, m’Lady,” he tells her. “We are never far away should you need us. Never far at all, if you were to find a way.”

 

He turns too, quickly spinning around and marching back in the direction of the harem.

 

Rey stands frozen to the spot, so many questions spilling over into the gates of her mind. Her uncle… he had been _called back_. 

 

The wording was the significant part, because put alone the phrase could mean anything, but now Rey knew in her heart where the truth lay. Many years ago, around the time she was believed to have been born, there had been a bloody coup against the Alderaan crown. A group of rebels knows as the Resistance had tried to overthrow them, and her ‘uncle’ had had a key role in their ultimately failed attempt. 

 

Luke had gone into hiding, only coming out of the woodwork a few years ago and under a new identity when Rey had been arrested for theft. Theft from the dead, because in Rey’s mind the crypts and their riches were more for the living than those who hardly needed their riches anymore . Her ‘Uncle Luke’ had claimed her falsely as a blood relation. His new identity as a inventor and respectable renaissance man had been thew only thing that had kept her from the gallows.

 

For five years they had tried to live a respectable life. Neither one of them were well suited to it. And now it seemed like her false uncle had fallen on one side again while she another.

 

Rey fidgets, not daring to look at the object that had been placed into her hand. She tucks it carefully under her breast band, hiding it from sight until she can deal with it in privacy later on.

 

And then there was Poe. He had been an old contact of hers. A bridge between her scavenging and those who were willing to pay the more often then not stolen goods. Poe had approached being something akin to a friend, but he’d always kept ties with people far further from the law then Rey cared to be connected with. She hadn’t seen him in years, not since before she was taken under Luke’s wing.

 

Poe had said to take a walk. It felt like more than just a passing suggestion, so that’s what Rey does. She leaves the garden courtyard, taking a new passage to an area of the palace she’s yet to see.

 

There are but a few people milling about this section. Mostly members of staff or the occasional lower level security guard. All of them glance at her oddly, leaving Rey to assume that the wives aren’t usually seen out during this time of day.

 

No one stops or questions her, and Rey slowly starts to feel more curious and less cautious as she navigates through the maze of corridors and smaller rooms. Judging by the elegant décor this wing of the palace must be reserved for nobility if not the royal family themselves. As far as Rey knows Kylo is the only royal who currently lives here. His mother the Queen is overseas monitoring some sort o political situation that Rey is unfamiliar with. From what she’s gathered, she has been away for the better part of a year. No one has seen Kylo’s father for much longer,though the details of that are even less known.

 

So he’s here all by himself. If Rey was feeling generous, she might almost wonder if that’s part f the reason why Kylo is the way that he is. Maybe all of his wives are simply a reflection of loneliness? Maybe there’s more to this then pure greed because why else would a man have so many women that he barely seems to know?

 

Rey’s grasping at straws here. Her husband has kept her so much in the dark about so many things. Their marriage is only a temporary one, or so she’s been promised, but that doesn’t mean that she is completely without curiosity for the man who swept her out of a life of poverty for a life of idleness.

 

Lost in thought, now Rey realizes that she’s just plain lost. She’d been ambling through random doors, choosing whichever one wasn’t locked or occupied, and now she finds herself at a dead end. One large double door at end of the hallway and it’s cracked open with sounds of rapid movement coming from inside.

 

Rey draws her robe tighter, wishing not for the first time that her designated wardrobe was more practical and less drafty. No one else is around, other than whoever is in that room that, judging by the sounds of it, is either conducting a one-sided battle or possibly utilizing the wives in the way Rey had seen that afternoon.

 

A blush immediately blooms across her cheeks at the memory. Now that had been one of the most curious things of all, and made even stranger by how Rey alone appeared to be the only one surprised by it.

 

A deep grunt and a loud thunk from behind the door finally catches the tail of Rey’s curiosity. She peeks in through the crack but she can’t see more than a large room filled with some oddly shaped furniture.

 

And more movement. Rapid, pounding movements paired with a quick shuffle of feet. What in the world is going on in there?

 

Rey opens the door, grateful that it doesn’t creak, and sticks her head inside.

 

It’s her _husband_ , and apparently this is some sort of gymnasium. Kylo has his back to her and he’s sparring with a stuffed dummy. A weapon is in his hand, some sort of stick with a metal end, and he’s practicing various forms and fighting postures.

 

He’s also half naked. 

 

Rey almost runs when she realizes that. Kylo is naked from the waist up. Naked and bending, flexing, moving. When he twists, the muscles in his back coil like a snake. When he kicks out, using the metal stick to heighten his jump, Rey can see how his abdominals contract. Watching him pretend to fight a stuffed piece of fabric is far more intriguing than it should be.

 

Rey edges into the room just a little further and _now_ is of course when the door chooses to alert her husband of her presence. 

 

Kylo stops mid strike, his muscles tighten with unresolved tension and a slight sheen of sweat catching the light as he takes notice of her.

 

“Rey?” 

 

He sounds surprised. Pleasantly surprised.

 

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

 

Rey blushes, looking down at the rough tiled floor. He’s not wearing enough for her liking, but at least the few clothes he has on are practical, unlike her sheer gown and thin silk robe.

 

“I… I wanted to go for a walk. I ended up here.”

 

Kylo steps closer, and Rey jumps at the unexpected clattering of his staff against the floor. She looks up at him then away again, edging towards a window to pretend to look out from instead.

 

They’re on the third story of the palace. Below them the grounds sprawl out and down along a steep hillside. Beyond it lies the city and, somewhere out of sight, her old home.

 

Rey swallows, feeling her husband’s presence behind her. She doesn’t look back at him, only to nearly jump out of her skin when a featherlight touch ghosts along the back of her neck.

 

“Your hair has been changed,” he says. “You look so beautiful, even more than the last time I saw you.”

 

Rey’s blush returns with a vengeance. The hardest part of his compliment is the tone of sincerity to it.

 

“You saw me this morning,” she reminds him.

 

“And you look even more beautiful now. Did you get dressed up to see me?”

 

Rey frowns, turning her head to glare at him, but Kylo has already stepped back, an infuriating smirk tilting up at his lips. He picks up the metal staff again, resuming practicing forms but no longer wailing on the poor dummy.

 

Rey watches him for a moment, unable to not feel somewhat impressed by how skilled his technique appears to be. She knows he has guards for protection, but to have this level of mastery with martial arts must have taken him years of dedication.

 

“How are you settling into our new life together?” he asks after a few minutes of her silent observation.

 

Gods what a question. 

 

“The harem was dreadful,” she tells him curtly. “I do believe my husband threw me to the wolves this morning, or perhaps more accurately to a pack of bloodthirsty harpies.”

 

Kylo pauses to regard her. Then he starts to pace, twirling the staff from one hand to another in a spinning flurry.

 

“You’re not getting along well with your new sisters, I take it?”

 

That’s putting it mildly. Rey wishes she could read him, see if he’s genuinely surprised or not.

 

“They hate me. They’re awful. I’ve never done a thing to them, and the dark haired one-” Rey pauses, trying to remember the various names. “Serena. She and her bitch pack of thugs tried to corner me. I don’t like being treated like prey, Kylo.”

 

Her husband sighs, rolling his shoulders up and down and once again causing his muscles to flex in ways that try to break Rey’s train of thought.

 

“Serena. Yes. There’s a story there with her, but-”

 

“Tell me. No one tells me anything and I meant it that I did nothing to her beyond simply existing.”

 

Kylo leans against the stick and scratches his chin thoughtfully.

 

“There was a time when she thought she might become my head wife. Or maybe she and Nevan together, because they’ve always been oddly close despite Serena’s temperament.”

 

Rey frowns, his words unsettling to her on multiple levels.

 

“Head wife?” she asks. “Do you really rank them like that? That’s disgusting.”

 

She’s not completely surprised, but Kylo looks at her with an edge to his gaze that she can’t tell if it’s anger or hurt.

 

“That’s the term used, Rey. Most of the women in the harem are my wives, technically, but many of them are in title only. My head wife is the one that I’m expected to someday have children with. Beyond that it’s a role with greater privileges and accompanying risks.”

 

He says it so factually. Rey blinks, trying to understand how all of these pieces connect together. 

 

“So you don’t have sex with all of them all the time?”

 

Rey blurts the question out without thinking. Kylo gapes at her, then bursts out into a laugh.

 

“Is that really- Rey, thank you for the compliment about my stamina, but even I have my limits.”

 

Rey wants to press. Wants to grill him for details on which wives, which of her atrocious ‘sisters’ he _does_ have intimacies with, but… but that would make it seem like she cares. It’s his business, after all, and nothing that effects her.

 

“Alright, so, this Serena… she thought she was going to be your ‘head wife’, but she’s not? Did you get bored of her quickly also?”

 

Kylo’s mood immediately falls. Instead of answering, he simply shakes his head and goes back to practicing forms. There’s certainly more to that story than he’s telling her, but she drops the discussion for now to steer it into a new direction.

 

“Why do they hate me, then? If some of your wives aren’t fully- er, if some have a different sort of relationship with you, then why would they care less about me?”

 

Serena’s hostility had certainly seemed more personal than just a hazing ritual, and then there was that whole unsettling business with the other wife that had ‘fallen ill’, Rey can only speculate what that means.

 

“Rey,” Kylo answers as he completes the next sequence of shadow moves. “There is a hierarchy amongst the women in the harem. I only get involved in the rare case that… you should know that you have a very high ranking, more so than many of those who have been here for longer, and I would guess that that’s why Serena and her clique targeted you. Pure simple jealousy.”

 

Now that Rey is finally starting to get answers, she feels more confused than ever.

 

“A… a high ranking? Me? Why?”

 

Kylo sets the staff down and walks over to her. Tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear and Rey wraps her arms tighter around herself.

 

“Because I chose you, Rey. Most of my wives were appointed to me, but I chose you myself.”

 

His hand lingers against her cheek. Rey frowns at it, and Kylo sighs and steps back.

 

“Did I tell you that you look beautiful?” he says.

 

A frown etches itself into his face and he toes the staff on the ground but doesn’t pick it up. Rey nods slowly, wondering at his odd change in temperament.

 

“You did,” she reminds him.

 

He nods, still staring at the floor between his boots. Rey waits for him to speak again but, when he doesn’t and the silence begins to become uncomfortable, she starts to turn to leave.

 

“Rey?” he calls after her before she reaches the door. “Is there something I can do for you? Something I can change to make your stay here more to your liking?”

 

It’s a surprising question, and Rey doesn’t really have an answer. There are too many things to count, but they’re all balanced with the fear of him asking for something in return.

 

“I’m bored,” she finally says. “I think most of us are, and maybe that’s what makes my ‘sisters’ so short tempered. I tried to read the books in the library, but they’re all dreadfully dull. All the other wives seem to do is lounge around and...”

 

Her voice trails off and Rey shuts down her memories completely before they veer off course to that alarming display with the General in the back room.

 

“My wives are given a life of comfort and luxury,” Kylo says, a defensive or perhaps offended lilt to his tone. “They want for nothing and have never mention _boredom_ to me at all.”

 

Rey silently wonders if her husband even goes to the harem at all. Well of course he does, the other wives certainly seemed to indicate his presence was a welcome diversion, but how much does eh really know about what does and doesn’t go on there?

 

“I saw who was at our wedding in the harem.” Rey chooses her words very carefully. “I was surprised to him there.”

 

“Did he bother you?” Kylo asks.

 

Bother was an odd way of putting it, considering he didn’t even know she was there, so Rey shakes her head.

 

“No, he… I saw him with the twins. Or not twins. The two wives that dress the same with the stupid hairstyle.”

 

Kylo straightens, an almost pout now on his already too-full lips.

 

“You mean Ayana and Helana. And that hairstyle was my mother’s favorite.”

 

Rey had actually forgotten their names already, or maybe she’d just intentionally blanked out every detail of that moment that she could.

 

“Your… your _mothers_? Why would they want to look like your mother?”

 

To that Kylo shrugs, looking away at the window where they had been standing before.

 

“Probably to try and win back my favor, I’d assume. They used to- well, they used to have a much higher standing in the harem, though I stopped calling on them when they’re true nature became apparent.”

 

Calling on them… Gods, Rey has barely been here day and she’s already sick to the gills with the complicated politics of her new sisters. 

 

“You mean they no longer satisfied you, is that it?”

 

Every time Rey tries to find something to like about her husband-

 

“Satisfied? For a time, but then not in the ways that I've come to realized I lack.”

 

Rey refuses to have an opinion about that. Refuses completely.

 

“I… I should go,” she says after another quiet moment.

 

“Would you like to fight me?”

 

Rey pauses mid-flight again, this time looking over her shoulder in surprise. Did she hear him right?

 

Kylo smirks at her and grabs a sparring mat. He rolls it out along the floor and gestures at it with a sweep of his hand.

 

“You- you’re serious?” she asks.

 

He nods, he smirk growing and her annoyance rising in turn.

 

“I’ve seen you scale relics, remember? I know you’re quick on your feet, and, if your uncle was right, you know how to handle yourself in a fight just as well.”

 

Rey flushes with renewed embarrassment. Just what had Uncle Luke been telling about her?

 

“You can’t be serious. Isn’t that… unladylike? Shouldn't I be lounging around pondering my next outfit or whatever your other wives spend their mind on?”

 

Kylo shrugs. He leans against the dummy, slinging his arm over its padded shoulders.

 

“You said you were bored and my friend here isn’t much of a challenge anymore. I think I know all his moves before he even does them. Besides, you certainly seemed like you wanted to hit me on our wedding day, so why not make up for lost time?”

 

Rey gapes at him. Then reminds herself that she’s supposed to act genteel and ladies of leisure don’t stand around stupefied.

 

“I don’t think-”

 

“Unless, of course, you’ve already lost all your old talents and are afraid I'd beat you too quickly. Perhaps this soft, dull life has gotten the better of you in record time.”

 

If Rey had feathers, she’s sure they’d be ruffled to the top right now.

 

“You’re _daring_ me,” she spits.

 

“I am,” Kylo admits.

 

And he smiles wider, offering her his outstretched hand.

 

Rey slaps it away, shoving him backwards as she takes him up on his offer. She circles him, debating whether she has a chance at all of winning this fight. She should save face and back down, but… but she also really, _really_ wants to wipe that smirk of her husband’s face.

 

“Afraid you’re going to lose?” he taunts.

 

Kylo watches her over his shoulder, smirk only growing with her hesitancy.

 

“I’m not dressed for this,” she tells him. “I’m in a silk gown and you’re in training clothes. Or half of training clothes. They give you the distinct advantage.”

 

Kylo shrugs.

 

“Feel free to take your clothes off, then. It won’t be the first time that’s happened in this room.”

 

Oh well that’s it then. Rey leaps, choosing the way of surprise to give herself the edge. For a second it almost works. For a second Rey thinks she might maybe somehow be able to knock him off balance and then have a real fighting chance at this.

 

Until Kylo grabs her, spins her, and flips her. It was the robe that did it. She was too limited in her movements that she couldn’t pull free of his grip without risking exposing herself.

 

Rey’s back collides with the mat and for a moment she lays there stunned. Did that really just happen so fast?

 

“Not fair,” she gasps.

 

Kylo smiles, of course he does, and he bends down to offer her his hand. 

 

“I demand a rematch.”

 

This wasn’t her fault. Rey was a good fighter, but it was like her new wardrobe was deliberately designed to make it harder to kick her new husband’s backside.

 

Rey pushes herself up to her elbows and swats Kylo’s hand away. She springs nimbly to her feet just to show him that she can.

 

The book that she had stolen from the harem and forgotten was hidden within the billowing pockets of her outer robe falls to the floor.

 

Rey stares at it dumbly. It was a rather small tome and she had completely forgotten it was there.

 

“Well it seems like at least one treasure of our library caught your eye,” Kylo says.

 

She bends to pick it up but Kylo bends faster. He snatches it away, apparently finding stealing it right out from her fingertips highly amusing. When he opens it his eyebrows raise nearly into his hairline.

 

“Rey...” 

 

His mouth forms several shapes and Rey suddenly feels aghast without exactly knowing why. 

 

He turns another page and Rey catches a glimpse of some sort of illustration. She moves to take it from him and he steps back, his mouth settling into a rather odd sort of smile.

 

“Rey, now I really had _no_ idea-”

 

“Oh just give it back to me!” 

 

She kicks him hard in the shin. Kylo’s eyes sparkle as he finally hands it over.

 

“And here I was thinking my new wife was an intellectual far above such earthly pleasures.”

 

Kylo crosses his arms then, watching her and seeming to barely contain his amusement by pressing the side of his fist over his mouth.

 

Rey opens the book and nearly drops it.

 

It opened down the center seam, plopping her right into the center of the novel, except it’s no novel at all. Instead there is an… an image. An illustration of a couple naked and interlinked.

 

She gasps then and that’s apparently the last straw for Kylo. He breaks out into a booming laughter, bending over himself and his whole body shaking.

 

“Rey, this is too good! Too perfect. Just when I thought you couldn’t be any more of an intricate mystery to me-”

 

“I didn’t know! I didn’t even open it before now!”

 

In disbelief she turns another page. Another picture of another couple in another carnal act. Or at least that’s what she thinks they’re doing. It’s not readily clear how exactly the duo is configured.

 

She slams the book shut and clutches it so tightly her knuckles turn white.

 

Her husband apparently is done laughing his ass off. He reaches out for her again, taking a step forward and sending Rey scurrying back.

 

“Would you like to look at it together?” he offers. “You seem rather uncertain and I can explain any points that you’re curious of?”

 

If Rey’s goal of fighting him had been to wipe that smirk off his face, she could have hardly failed any more than this. Sheer mortification washes over her, the bite of it as sharp as she’d hardly ever known.

 

Kylo dares to take another step and she spins on her heel, darting out of the room at such a breakneck pace she barely even hears her husband call out after her.

 

*

 

Rey turns away every knock at her door.

 

She’d had to ask for help finding her way back to her bedroom, and that had only soured her mood even further. Then an attendant had come to fetch her to the harem for dinner and she had shot him down before he’d even finished his sentence.

 

And then she’d felt bad about that, and her mood only worsened as another attendant later came offering to help her with some sort of ungodly sounding nightly ritual. All Rey had wanted was rock to crawl under or a hole to hide in until her tidal wave of embarrassment had ebbed back down to livable levels.

 

Finally at the third knock on the door she’d lost her composure completely and had shouted for ‘whoever it is to go away and stay gone!’ Silence had followed. Rey had paced. Tried to ignore her growing hunger by stalking around the confines of her room like a tiger in a cage.

 

It was an apt comparison. She was here to be displayed, not appreciated. Just like those majestic beasts behind iron bars that she had once seen as a child, now she was an adult with clipped claws. Something pretty, pleasing, and ornamental.

 

And also hungry, and that too-familiar need was what had finally prompted her to open her door. To her surprise, a package was laying in front of it. A place of food now cold rested on top, and Rey hesitantly took the offering back into her only sanctum.

 

Black fabric greeted her first. Rey blinked at it, her mind automatically falling to some place of tis being a trap or worse, a cruel offering from her ‘sisters’. 

 

“Oh.”

 

That was all she could say when she pulled the first item out. It was an outfit, but nothing like the elaborate sheers she had been given previously. No, this was a matching set of black training clothes. Simple, with a soft and unassuming material and a wholeheartedly practical design.

 

Rey smiles despite herself. If this was her husbands way of apologizing for… well, for being himself, it wasn’t nearly enough but perhaps a slight step in the right direction.

 

Rey’s excitement picked up as she studied the rest of her gift package. It was filled with books, and judging by their covers and first pages they seemed to tales of fiction, nothing like the drab historical fair she had found before.

 

Her excitement was short lived, however. The very last book wasn’t like the others. No, it was _that_ book that had fallen out of her robe during their sparring. 

 

Rey immediately flushes from head to toe, her embarrassment coming back to her full force from even holding the wicked tome in her hands.

 

She pushes it away from her, recoiling back as if scalded, and tries to ignore it. Her food, though cold, is lovely. She probably could find someone and ask for it to be reheated, but then maybe Kylo would be right and she’d have been getting spoiled to comforts already.

 

Rey makes it another half hour before curiosity once and again gets the best of her. She approaches the debased book like one would a particularly ornery wild beast. First she toes at it, nudging it a few inches along the floor. There’s something sticking out of it. A note.

 

Gods, if this is her “husband” gloating… Rey will get him back for that. She’ll find a way.

 

With a grit of her teeth she picks the book up and opens it to the marked page. Angular, slanted writing greets her.

 

_ Dearest wife, _

_ I hope you enjoy your new reading materials. I chose them with care for the ones that I think would suit your interests. Please do let me know if you have any questions regarding **any** of what you read. _

_ Signed with affection, _

_ Your Devoted Husband _

 

Rey turns the note over, convinced there must be more that reveals Kylo’s true ulterior motive. That was a mistake because, though the backside of the paper was empty, the note had been resting over… over an illustration.

 

An illustration drawn with great care and detail of a man with his head largely obscured by the legs of a woman wearing an expression of absolute, exaggerated bliss.

 

There was an accompanying text, too, but what it says will remain a mystery because Rey immediately hurls the wicked book aside, retreating from it as if it had bitten her.

 

Gods her husband was unbearable! What sort of cruel-

 

No. No no no. Rey resolutely refuses to allow herself to be ruffled by him. Not again. The book was garbage, and she was infinitely above it’s depraved depths. She should slap his face the next time she sees him. She should shove his gifts right back at him and…

 

And Rey embarrassingly really wants to keep them. Other than the filth, the rest of the books had seemed high with potential. And the clothing was a welcome change. Something she could actually move in, without constantly being in fear of it slipping and revealing more than she’d like.

 

So maybe her husband wasn’t a complete wretch. Just very, very nearly so. 

 

But would the outfit even fit her? All her other clothes had been custom made for her, but that had taken days. Kylo must have picked these out from what was already on hand.

 

Rey quickly strips down, her mood lifting with the excitement of trying out her new gift. She really has gotten soft already, hasn’t she? Excited about _clothes_ , of all the frivolous things.

 

When she removes her top layer, something falls out and clinks against the floor. It was the little item Poe had given her. Rey had forgotten about it completely until this moment, but she already knows what it is before she even sees it.

 

The Resistance’s signet ring. Their calling card, as it were, with their traitorous symbol hidden behind a movable stone. Rey turns it over carefully, thinking less about the great significance of the object and more about where she could hide it where it would be safe?

 

Possibly she could pry the symbol out and burn it? Then it would be just a ring, nothing she could get into deadly trouble for.

 

Rey spins the stone, the mechanism twisting just like she remembered it. Inside is no emblem, though, but a tiny, tiny little square of paper.

 

Unlike Kylo’s scrawling hand, the writing on it is so small and faint that Rey has to bring it right next to her bedside candle to be able to read it at all.

 

_ Midnight tonight. On the roof. _

 

Another note. Another invitation from another man that Rey isn’t sure she wants anything to do with. Unlike Kylo, however, this time this is one that she’s willing to take a risk on.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure how I feel about this chapter. I wish I could have spent a little more time on it to streamline because it really rambles, but I had a deadline and this fic needed an update so here we are. Lots of plot developments. Last chapter on of you lovely readers had a REALLY interesting suggestion regarding the book Rey found in the closet. I was really tempted to change it to being the dead sister’s diary because that was brilliant, but ultimately I decided to stick to my outline and have it be a Alderaan Kama Sutra because… well, it’s just funnier and OF COURSE Rey would ave to get busted with it, right? I need to get sex on that girl’s brain if this is ever going to be heading in that direction. But I really liked that idea with the diary, so it just might make an appearance alter on it the plot, hmmmm….
> 
> And I changed a teeny tiny thing from ch2 where I described the mysterious guard as being really tall. I originally had planned on him being Finn in disguise but, as my plot developed in my head, Poe seemed a better fit for the role. Anyone see that cast photo where they made poor Oscar Isaac stand on a stool next to Adam and Gwendoline? Ouch. They could have put him in the designated shorties section next to Luke and Leia, just sayin’…


	5. Give 'em The Slip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Rey huffs and puffs and blows those bars right open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this chapter was both very late and very short! I have been SO BUSY, but I think it’s about to settle down now so I’m going to try posting shorter chapters more often (fingers crossed)

Rey was no stranger to fear.

 

Much of her life had been shaped by this fundamental emotion. Fear of not surviving and all the many different facets that could mean had been a constant companion to her up until her “Uncle” had taken her under his wing.

 

Some fears were worse than others, though. Life and death stakes were so common to her that they were almost comforting. Live or die by her own hand.

 

The politics of an arranged marriage, a hate-filled nest of her sisters, and now a mysterious call to action however, all brought with them the worst fear of them all: fear of the unknown.

 

It leaves Rey pacing her room in an X, crossing from one side to the other then pivoting and turning on her heel and going right back. The time is drawing nearer. Poe will be expecting her soon, and first she’ll have to find a way out of her room undetected and somehow make it to the rooftop.

 

A challenge in itself, but also one Rey isn’t so sure she even wants to take.

 

Speaking to Poe… she could get dragged down to something dark. Her life had finally started to change direction for the better and she’d turned over a new leaf. And her marriage to Kylo, temporary though it may be, was as close to a respectable position as she could ever dream of having in her life.

 

So surely it would be better for her not to go? To stay out of whatever Poe and the Resistance were planning and keep her life clean?

 

Rey stops herself when she realizes she was fiddling with her wedding ring. She’d taken to only wearing it in public and then only when she absolutely must. Now, when it’s near midnight and she’s completely alone, the band of metal should be securely tucked away in it’s little velvet home for the night. 

 

Something inside her, however, compelled to put it back on. It was a symbol of her confinement. A gift from a man who seemed to tell her two riddles for every half truth. The physical proof that the course of her life was no longer completely her own to decide upon.

 

And yet, somehow, it brings with it an odd sense of comfort. Now Rey feels like she’s too close to something dangerous. If she goes to Poe, there were so many instances that could happen. She could get dragged down into a trap. She could get dragged down into the truth. She could get caught sneaking about. The reasons to stay here in her room greatly outweighed any possible positive outcome of her making the rendezvous.

 

She should stay. She will stay. She won’t go to him. She can’t get herself into trouble for something she knows nothing about.

 

With that settled, Rey nods and starts to twist her wedding ring back off. There’s a small private bath attached to her room and, if the water is still hot at this time of night, perhaps a long soak will help to calm her frayed nerves?

 

And then the box of presents she’d been given catches her eye. She had been pacing around them, too lost in thought to give them much attention, but now they give her an idea. The training out Kylo had given her was all black. Why she didn’t know, the man seemed to have an odd fixation with the morbid color. If she were to wear it now and be very, very careful… it was night. The guards had no reason to suspect anything of her. It should be easy to slip out undetected and gods know that Rey has managed much greater feats than hiding in the shadows.

 

But of course that would only be relevant if she were to go. She had already decided she wasn't going to and now, as the midnight hour draws closer, a solid knot of tension starts to twist in her stomach.

 

Rey picks the training garments up and contemplates them. Even for something so simple in design, it was made of the highest quality. A soft, supple fabric that was both practical in allowing her ease of movement as well as far more modest than even her most covering of dresses.

 

It had been an unexpected kindness form her husband to give this to her. That makes her decision all the harder. In an odd way that she’d rather not explore, there was a part of Rey that… she had no loyalty to Kylo, he hadn’t earned it, but she still had to reluctantly admit that he had done so much for her. The opportunity he’s given her is less than once in a lifetime and, despite the countless negatives to his nature and behavior that Rey could think of, there were still pieces of him she couldn’t help but feel drawn to.

 

On some level she owes him, Rey knows this. Just like she knows that whatever Poe was going to say to her was probably something that could be very dangerous for her husband, the crown prince of Alderaan.

 

And now she’s close to getting caught in the middle. Being pulled in so many directions by people she honestly barely knows. If she’s going to do this… 

 

She _has to_ go, doesn’t she? She has to know. She’s not agreeing to anything. Hearing her old contact out commits her to nothing. Knowledge is power, though, and here she seems to have so very little of it.

 

Gods what a decision. Rey makes it quickly though. Gives herself no chance to change her mind and it’s better that way.

 

She strips out of her nightgown quickly, noting how the beams of moonlight are stretching long through the bars of her window. It’s nearly time. If she’s going to go, she needs to go now.

 

The training garment seems to fit her almost perfectly, like it had been tailored for her even though Rey knew that wasn’t the case. And while it was smooth and sleek and comfortable, it was also rather more lurid than she had expected. While the sheer silks of her dresses skimmed and teased with their fluttery movements, this material clinged to every swell of her. The final effect once she donned it and looked in the mirror was a reflection of a confident and capable woman. That was the spirit the garment tried to create, though it was rather ruined by the deep set fear Rey recognized in her own face.

 

Last chance to change her mind.

 

She doesn’t. Because she has no true choice.

 

The window. That may be her best chance. Most likely there are guards patrolling outside as well, but it would be close to impossible to slip past them in the hallways. 

 

The window itself could be swung open to let the warm night breeze in, but beyond it were iron bars. For her security, she knew, because it wasn’t like they could just have the palace so open without them, but they would still cause a great hindrance to her sneaking out.

 

Or they _could_ have caused a hindrance, had they not already been tampered with. The area of the frame where the bars are secured into is strategically cracked. Rey has to frown and bring a candle closer to see it, but indeed someone has deliberately rigged the bars to be removable. It takes a strong effort on her part, but with a few grunts and some muscle work she manages to pry out three of them to make a large enough space that shew could slip out.

 

This had been done recently. They hadn't been like that last night.

 

Poe. He had told her to take a walk. Directed her to go in a different direction that her room. He must have done this after they had separated. 

 

A ripple of displeasure crawls along Rey’s spine at the realization. He had been in her room without her knowledge. Being a little territorial was part of her nature, but his presence here meant yet another threat she had to be aware of: if a ‘palace guard’ could sneak into her room undetected, so surely could someone else. She wasn’t near as safe here as she had tried to reassure herself she was.

 

The ring and the book. She needs to hide those. The Resistance’s ring was beyond damning, but it was small enough that Rey could simply drop it inside one of the bottles of lotions and face tonics that had been provided to her on her vanity and she had no real idea what to do with. It will be perfectly secure there for now, until she can find a better place for it.

 

The book, however, that raunchy depraved tome of perversion, was less damning and more just plain and wholly embarrassing. She’d tossed it into a corner and had tried not to think about it further. She’d failed terribly, however, and now shame joins the unease in her stomach as she picks the wretched novel up and tries to find a hideyhole for it.

 

Curiosity overtakes her almost as quickly as her flushed cheeks. Just one little look? A short peek won’t hurt her. It’s a _book_ for kriffs sake. Just pieces of paper and pencil and…

 

And there are a lot of texts to go along with the immodest images. It’s an instruction book, of all things. Each drawing of a couple entangled is paired with a matching text that explains in _great_ detail what is going on.

 

Rey’s eyebrows shoot up to the ceiling as she contemplates a particular unfeasible looking positioning of limbs. The words to the piece provide little insight and simply make her more confused as the pose promises ‘great pleasure for both’ and yet how is _that_ even possible? Rey isn’t even entirely sure what the illustrated couple on the page are doing, let alone how they could enjoy the tangle they’ve found themselves in.

 

_ Let me know if you have any questions regarding any of what you read. _

 

Kylo had said that in his note to her. The cheek of the man. He had to have known that such  obscenities were too far below the scope of her knowledge, didn’t he?

 

Rey grimaces and snaps the book shut. There are several pictures decorating her walls, and she picks the one with the heaviest and most ornate frame to slip the book  behind.

 

There, that’s sorted. Now it’s time to be off and then back again as quick as her  legs can take her.

 

*

 

Movement. Running, jumping, crouching, and lurking.

 

This is what she had missed. It had only been two days since her wedding, but already her body  had sorely missed the chance to exert itself.

 

Her  heart rate is up, both from the exertion and the tension, and there would be a sheen to her skin if the palace roof didn’t have a steady breeze to cool her down.

 

Poe’s note had said nothing beyond the place and time. The palace roof is a wide and multileveled expanse of slopes and chimneys and overhangs. Ample space for Rey to hide from the two lethargically pacing guards making their rounds. Neither of them are Poe, of this she’s certain. They have the wrong build and the wrong armor as well. But where is he?

 

How ironic would it be if he was the one to stand her up after she  had spent the first half of the  night contemplating doing exactly that to him?

 

Or perhaps this truly was a trap then? Could there be an ambush waiting right  around every corner that she darts into as she makes her way across the palace rooftop? Or… or maybe he wanted her out of her room then? Could he or  someone be in  there now, trying to-

 

A glint of light. No, not a glint, a deliberate flicker. It peeps at her from the inkiest pool of shadows flowing  around the base of the central tower. One blink. Three blinks. One blink. Not from a  candle or the like, but perhaps from a piece of metal being made to catch the moon just so?

 

The last chance to turn around, but Rey is already far to invested in this to even think about that anymore.

 

She moves quickly and with near silence. The close fit of her training outfit is essential to her approach. Clad like this, she can nearly slip right beneath the guards noses, but she still waits for them to pass and turn out of sight before she makes her way to the tower.

 

When she reaches it, practically burying  herself into the shadows the structure offers her, Rey finds a heavy wooden door open a crack. Inside is more darkness, but she can feel more than see subtle movement inside.

 

Rey looks over her  shoulder once more, simply to be as sure as she can be that no one other than Poe is watching her. Then she opens the door and slips inside, disappearing into the darkness of a new part of the palace  and the mysteries it will surely bring.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy everyone! Given the situation over at tumblr I’m still going to keep my account there but I’m not going to be very active anymore, but you can still find me now on tumblr at lost-inthesunlight. I HAVE just started a new twitter though! Me, on twitter, hath hell frozeth over? Well actually I’m really enjoying the Reylo community there and wondering what the heck took me so long to give it a try! You can find me on twitter at Ava_Avdal and I hope to see you there! :)
> 
> And we have, ladies and gentlemen, reached the point of classic story structures where the hero(ine) receives a call to action and initially rejects it. Of course that rejection didn’t last long, but it was critical for Rey to come to terms with going to see Poe at her own pace. Now, of course, she’s about to really get into something deep because, when The Call is given, it must at some point be answered.
> 
> Next chapter:
> 
> Rey finds out something that she can’t ignore, and it’s time for her and Hubby to spend some more time together.


	6. Deep Decisions on a Dark Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Rey talks with the other side (or is that the first side?), and debates with herself if she should go to her husband in the middle of the night. Cue ubiquitous ‘happy to see her’ joke.

The door brought Rey into a small upper landing connecting the rooftop to the castle. It was filled with wooden boxes, a spiral staircase plunging down into dark shadows, and not one but _two_ familiar faces.

 

Poe was one of them, and he stood to the near side of Rey. He was still dressed like one of the palace guards as she’d last seen him, but his helmet had been taken off and now rested on top of a box behind him. 

 

Rey blinks at him mutely, studying the new worry lines that traced along his face that hadn’t been there those few years ago when he had been an underworld contact to her. She also can’t help but notice his almost amusingly disarrayed helmet hair. A fluttering notion that her husband would most certainly not be caught in such a state skims across Rey’s mind before she brushes it aside and turns her attention to the third party in the room.

 

“You never told me your name,” Rey says to the petite, redheaded woman. “When we met in the harem you were with those four others, but I never heard your name.”

 

It was that girl that had been with Nevan and her posse of harpies. She has seen her and Nevan later that day in one of the back rooms of the harem together. Something about her had stood out to Rey even from the beginning. She was too quiet. Too pretty to be trusted. And now she was here.

 

“I’m with the Resistance,” she tells Rey. “We need your help.”

 

It’s brazen to out herself like that so plainly. The smarter half of Rey wants her to turn on her heel and run out and away from whatever this is. 

 

Yet Rey stays where she is, determined to find out what she’s seemingly about to be dragged into.

 

“I have no reason to help you” Rey tells them both. “I can hear you out, but that’s all I’ll do.”

 

“Please,” the other woman implores. “You can call me Alyss. That’s how I’m known in the harem. I can’t risk telling you my real name, but I’m putting my faith and trust in you, Rey.”

 

“We both are,” Poe agrees.

 

A sinking pit starts to form in Rey’s stomach. She shoots the unusually silent Poe an accusatory look and he visibly swallows.

 

“Rey- we need to know we can trust you. Your Uncle said we could, but we need to hear it from you yourself.”

 

Rey stiffens, her lungs stuttering slightly on the breath she had been sucking in.

 

“My… U _ncle Luke_ told you that?”

 

Suddenly the already small room feels crushingly claustrophobic. The notion that she’s been somehow set up hits Rey hard, making her shuffle backwards until she’s flush with the door to the outside.

 

Poe steps closer, but stops when Rey glares at him, her fight or flight instincts rising up and tensing through her limbs.

 

“Please, Rey. There is a great deal at stake right now. Things are in motion. Both your uncle’s and many other lives are hanging in a very delicate balance.”

 

Rey look from him to the other woman. Alyss, or whatever her name really is, stares back imploring. An odd tactic since Rey doesn’t even know the woman. Poe is pushing the limits of their association enough as it is.

 

After a moment of standoff Rey sighs, her shoulders slumping as she leans heavily against the door for emotional support.

 

“What do you want? Yes, you can tell me, and I won’t speak of it to anyone, but that’s _all_ I will promise.”

 

Poe steps back, crossing the small room to pick up his guards helmet.

 

“There are more of us like me, Rey. The Resistance has several operatives working within the palace. We are… we believe an opportunity to overthrow the Alderaan throne may be presenting itself soon.”

 

He turns the helmet around in a circle and Rey waits, fidgeting impatiently with the hem of her tunic. It’s the other woman who speaks next.

 

“For your own safety we won’t tell you more than that,” she says. “Not until you need to hear it, and only if you choose to side fully with us.”

 

Rey can’t help but wonder how much of their attempts to show she has a say in this is sincere.

 

“So what do you want from me, then?” she asks. “Even if I wanted to help your with your… insurrection, I suppose to call it, but I have no power here. None at all, and beyond that I’m scarcely even liked. There’s nothing I can do for you that someone else couldn’t do far better.”

 

Poe shakes his head then. 

 

“That’s not true,” he tells her. “You can be our eyes and ears. Help us to keep a close eye on the movements and words of the Prince. That once would have been Alyss’s job, but Prince Kylo has taken such a clear favor to you. We need you to stay close to him and watch even closer.”

 

“The whole palace is murmuring about your apparent dislike of the Prince,” the redhead adds before Rey can answer. “Is that true, or did we misunderstand your true affection for him?”

 

Rey tries not to flinch. The question was perhaps honest enough, but it still felt like an accusation. At least she referred to Kylo as ‘the Prince’ and not _her_ husband as well, or Rey is fairly certain she might have slapped her. 

 

“Kylo is an arrogant lech!” Rey tells them. “He has no regard for anyone other than himself! But if you think I can somehow sway him-”

 

“Keep him off our trail,” Poe interrupts. “We are waiting for our time, and we believe it’s drawing soon. His mother, the Queen, hasn’t been seen for months and we… we have suspicions. If there is to be a shift in the Alderaan throne, this might be our only chance.”

 

Rey had wondered about that. Kylo had spoken only briefly of his mother, but it had been with a fondness. However, the Empress hadn’t been seen in public for so long. Allegedly she was overseas, but what if what Poe was telling her was right?

 

“The current Prince is unfit in every way to be a leader,” Alyss tells her. “People are out there starving and fighting on the streets, and even now he leads a life of idleness and decadence. This might be the only chance we have in this generation to bring a real change and put the power back with the people of Alderaan where it belongs.”

 

Rey had lost count of how many times in her old life she had cursed the kingdom’s royal family. All the times she had seen the waste and conceit of the wealthy few while others like herself and all those even less fortunate had barely been able to survive from one day to another.

 

And now she was here. Dressed up, everything she needs provided for, and even after only a few days she was starting to grow spoiled.

 

“And Uncle Luke?”

 

The knot in Rey’s stomach twists again. Had he planned this from the very beginning then?

 

“He told us not to have you put in any danger, Rey,” Poe says. “He brought you here because he believed that the Prince would take favor to you, but he made us promise you would have no part in anything that would place you at risk.”

 

Rey fights to swallow down the rising emotion. She shakes her head tensely, and Poe and Alyss both edge a little closer at her obvious indecision.

 

“Simply be a distraction, Rey. Keep his attention on you and not us. Perhaps at times be a messenger or a middleman. That’s all we ask of you.”

 

“And you don’t believe that will put me in danger?”

 

Poe pauses, rolls his jaw, then slowly nods.

 

“Perhaps it will. We can’t lie about that. It already has to another of our agents.”

 

Rey frowns and starts to brush the comment aside, then something dawns on her.

 

“Another one of your… Nevan spoke of a harem sister who had become ill. Is-”

 

“Paige,” Alyss interrupts. “Yes. She had been one of our best operatives. She had convinced the Prince to take a great liking to her and it had been our hopes she could sway him. Perhaps, given enough time, she could have even reached him and convinced him to allow a change in power peacefully. We would have and still are willing to offer that: to let the Alderaan family stay on the throne, but only as figureheads. The real power would be where it belongs.”

 

Rey doesn’t know her husband well, hardly at all truly, but even still she knows that he would never agree to such a deal. His pride seemed to only be bested by the size of his ego.

 

“What happened to her?” she asks, dipping her voice low.

 

Poor Poe looks so uncomfortable, and a few tense moments pass before Alyss answers her question.

 

“She died. A very mysterious illness, though of course we suspect it was more than that.”

 

“…I see. Nevan? One of the others?”

 

Rey had been expecting that, given the harsh welcome she had received for the much smaller slight of simply existing. Poe shakes his head, though.

 

“It could have been. We don’t know. There are as many people who would like to see Prince Kylo come to throne as there are who want the position for themselves. He is man with many enemies, Rey, so please don’t think your uncle asks this of you lightly.”

 

Rey closes her eyes. It takes a bold effort to her voice from wavering.

 

“I will try to help,” she says. “But I mean it that there is very little I can do. If I see something, or hear something, then-”

 

“That’s all we ask,” Poe promises. “Just let us know. Tell what you hear to Alyss if it’s safe, or I will be in contact until I need to move.”

 

Rey turns then, eager to leave before she becomes any more complicit in this scheme than she already is. She rushes out the door before either Poe or the other woman can say anything else.

 

Then she flits back through the shadows along the nearly empty rooftop, now suddenly more eager for the sanctuary of the palace walls than she had ever been before.

 

*

Only once Rey is safely back inside her room does she allow her feelings to finally come out.

 

She cries softly, tears of pure frustration mixed with uncertainty and an edge of the bite of betrayal. Rey muffles the sound of her sobs with the wadded up silk sheets from her bed, trying to work her way through the maelstrom of emotions silently. The whole palace is still at this dark hour of the night, probably sometime closer to three than two in the morning. No one should be out and about, but if they were the last thing Rey needs now is for someone to hear her weeping.

 

Uncle Luke… he set this up, then? Of course he set her marriage up, Rey knew that from the beginning, but she had thought before that it had been a union of money and stability. That her “uncle” had been trying to provide a better life for her. Perhaps by extension tot hem both, but she had hardly begrudged him that after he’d done so much and taken her under his wing.

 

Or maybe not. Maybe she had just been a pawn for him to move.

 

The thought of that stings the hardest in Rey’s heart. Makes her eyes burn even after her tears have come and gone. She didn’t want to believe it. She _couldn’t_ , because that would too much. An impossible betrayal from one of the few -if not the only- person she has let herself come to rely on.

 

It takes Rey a good few minutes to come back from her miserable cycle of thoughts and doubts. Maybe it’s because it’s so late and everything seems magnified in the dark of the night. Maybe because she’s so utterly in the dark in do many ways. Maybe she’s looking at this the wrong way?

 

_Uncle_ Luke… so much of him is forever an enigma to her. He took her in when she desperately needed the shelter, but he was never a man to open himself up to her. He was reserved. Stoic. Supportive and kind, but distant. That was fine, she was rather the same way. Still, though, Rey knows she must be fair to him. If what Poe said was true, that she had been bound by marriage to Kylo for reasons beyond simply marriage to a _prince_ , then Rey reluctantly must give her Uncle the benefit of the doubt. For now. He must have had a reason to do that, and it must have been it very, very good one for him not to tell her and bring her into the fold.

 

It had _better_ be a very, very good one.

 

Rey tries to pull herself together, starting to swipe at her snotty face with her sleeve before remembering that now even her simple training clothes are far to nice for such a treatment. A silk scarf gets the job instead, and she quickly starts to change out of the all black ensemble.

 

There’s no point in going back to bed. It’s now closer to the start of day than night and she could hardly sleep regardless. Not when Rey finds herself so terribly, terribly lonely as she does now. In a way, she just promised to betray her own husband. Kylo was such in name only, true, but it still felt so wrong. 

 

And that’s what compels her to go and see him now. He had offered her an invitation to speak with him whenever she wanted to. Sort of. 

 

Or… or technically not _exactly_ , but her husband had certainly made such a song and dance about wanting to win her affections. And she needs to see him now. To search her feelings for right and wrong.

 

So she’ll surprise him in the middle of the night in his bedroom. How he treats her at this interruption will either make her decision crystal clear or that much harder.

 

Rey picks as simple of a dress as she’s been given, which isn’t to say much since her whole wardrobe seems to consist of sheer satins and sheerer silks and one lone black catsuit. An embroidered satin it is then, followed by the thicker of her two outer robes. Next she debates on the slippers before choosing to make a show of rebellion and go barefoot. Tucking the keys into he rocket, smoothing her messy hair as much as she can.

 

Then she slips out, closing her door as quietly as the echoing lock allows. Three in the morning now or maybe a little past that and the hallways are bone still. The few nighttime candles are burning low, creating an irregular flickering that tries to set her nerves on edge. It fails, though,. Because Rey is already too wrung out to care. Let someone try and stop her. They won’t. Not now. She’s going to see her _husband_ now, and no doubt that’s a terrible idea, but if she can’t sleep then bloody well he won’t be able to either.

 

Rey relies on muscle memory and instinct alone to take her to the wing of the palace where his room must lie. It’s an odd thing, even though she had never been there before, somehow her feet can find the way, almost like there’s some invisible string leading her forward. 

 

Maybe the shadows are playing tricks with her mind after all. Rey picks up her pace, tightening her robe firmly and the only sound she makes is the soft pat of her feet against the marble floor.

 

*

 

Along the way Rey had passed two rounds of guards on patrol.

 

They had both stopped her, but in a very polite sort of way. Again speaking to her in an odd and unknown tongue, and there was a tone of confusion and presumed concern to whatever they were saying to her.

 

Rey had no time for that. She had waved them away and pushed past, which they had both allowed with an even greater air of confusion. Her husband may be many things, but at least so far he had been honest that she wasn’t a prisoner here.

 

When she gets to the royal wing of the palace Rey finds the gymnasium she had been in earlier. That way had been a dead end, but a few more twists and turns in another direction takes her to what she can guess must be the royal family’s bedrooms. Five heavily ornate doors line the sides, two on the right and three on the left. More than for the surviving members of the family, though perhaps a few were reserved for their closest friends?

 

Regardless, only one seems to have seen recent use, though, and it’s an easy guess from the two guards that stand outside it and eye her through the slitted holes of their black metal masks. These ones are different then either the standard patrols or the higher ranking guards like Poe was pretending to be. They towered above her forbidding, leaving Rey wondering for the thousandth time if she was about to make yet another terrible mistake after a day full of them.

 

“Hello,” she offers.

 

Rey keeps her voice low and she gives the guards a little curtsy. They stay silent, but through the slit in their masks Rey can see their dark eyes slide to each other and then back to her.

 

“I- I would like to see my husband now.”

 

It should have seemed obvious, unless Rey was in the wrong place which she doubted. She waits, expecting them to either open the door for her or turn her away.

 

They do neither. They stay silent, and so still Rey isn’t completely sure if their even breathing. She shifts from foot to foot before taking a step forward and moving to open the door herself. Now one of the guards stops her. Not with his words but with a gloved hand on her shoulder and Rey freezes to the spot. The oddest feeling sweeps over her, rather like a stiff breeze is sweeping through her mind. It lasts only a breath and only over the surface of her thoughts before it’s gone along with the offending hand.

 

Rey stumbles slightly, now both a little dizzy and suddenly fearful. The guard returns to how he was before, a tall and unmoving gargoyle that hardly moves. 

 

The urge to turn on her heel and flee is strong, but that would mean putting her back to whatever manner of beings these things are. Instead, Rey steps forward again and quickly raps on the door with a tight fist. The sound echoes terribly against all the silence, and there’s no answer from inside. Rey looks again at the guards who watch her, their masked faces almost totally hidden by the shadows of the dim corridor.

 

They let her open the door, though. It’s not locked, though probably it doesn’t need to be when it’s otherwise guarded as it is. Rey opens it just enough to slip inside and close it behind her as soon as the swirling hem of her skirts will let her.

 

Kylo’s bedroom is smaller than she’d expected, and very dark. The only light in fact is coming from the bright streams of moonlight pouring down from a large skylight window. Rey steps under it and looks up, marveling at all the stars she can see. If her own room had a view like this, she might be more inclined to it.

 

“When I can’t sleep I like to follow the path of the moon.”

 

Kylo’s deep voice startles Rey so much she jumps back out of the moonlight. It had come from somewhere to the side and low, and when Rey squints in the darkness she can faintly make out the dark shape of a bed with a pale shape on top of it.

 

“What?” she asks, not having paid attention.

 

A soft creek and the sound of fabric sliding against itself answers her, followed by a soft clearing of his throat.

 

“I like to watch the moon too. When I can’t sleep. If it’s full or nearly full I can see it through the window for almost the whole night. When it gets to where you are I know it’s almost dawn.”

 

The room is still and slightly too cold for Rey’s liking. Her eyes struggle to adjust to the severe darkness, and now she can see more paleness and the start of an outline to a body. If Kylo’s wearing anything, it’s not much.

 

Rey turns her back to him when she hears the bed creak again. He makes some sound, a click or a clunk like he’s picking something up from the bedside table.

 

When nothing happens and the quiet threatens to become too much, she looks back over her shoulder at him. Even through the darkness she can see his eyes watching her, though she can’t make out his expression.

 

“I… I used to watch the stars and moon every night,” she finally says. “I taught myself all the constellations. Made some of my own up, too.”

 

She hears Kylo laugh softly and she blushes despite the coolness of the room. Somehow she always seems to be doing that around him over nothing.

 

“Do you think that’s funny?” she asks, turning back away as the pale form shifts and she can start to see a little _too_ clearly.

 

“That you were all alone as a child and these were the games you’d play with yourself? Of course, not, it’s devastating to even think about.” 

 

H is voice is too soft. She doesn’t like that tone on him.  It hits her then how much of a mistake this truly was. She  _can’t_ let herself feel anything for the Prince. Not before with their agreement and certainly not now. She had wanted company, had  _needed_ it, but  not at such an uncertain price.

 

“Rey, your uncle told me how you lived all alone out in the desert. That’s why I mentioned the moon. Because I thought you would understand. You’d understand what it’s like to wait for the day when the night is too long.”

 

Understand? How could  _he_ possibly understand? This spoiled, entitled, grown up  brat .  He couldn’t possibly imagine the things she’s been though, and on that the Resistance had been absolutely right about him.

 

Still though, Rey sighs, forcing her hackles back down. She gets the distinct feeling that her husband is  _trying_ , at least. Perhaps trying to open himself up to her a little in the hopes that she’d do the same.

 

That didn’t help. Rey has no intentions of sharing anything with him, though she still doesn’t know exactly what made her so compelled to see him tonight at all. She had expected Kylo to either be cross at her or throw himself at her. Now that he has done neither she’s at a loss.

 

“Do you have a lamp you can light?” she asks quietly. “I don’t like how dark it is in here.”

 

A pause, and then an equally  soft reply.

 

“It’s the middle of the night, Rey. It’s supposed to be dark because I was sleeping. Or trying to sleep.”

 

The ‘why are you here’ implication is obvious, even though he doesn’t come out and say it. Rey hears him make movement,  and in the time it takes for him to light a match and then a candle she still hasn’t come up with an answer to give him.

 

“I had… you had said that...” 

 

Every attempt to start stops short on her tongue. Rey turns to him and then immediately looks down, pondering the intricacies of the patterned carpet below her feet.

 

The modesty of her eyes was protected only by a sheet – black of course- piled around her husband’s waist. Most of his legs and the upper half of him were completely bare, answering any questions she might have had about what manner he prefers to sleep.

 

“Rey? You were saying something?”

 

The lilt in his voice is undeniable. Rey grimaces, hating how effortlessly he can get the upper-hand on her without even having to try.

 

“You’re a pig-headed oaf with no manners at all.”

 

Kylo snorts. The bed creaks again as he flops down off his elbows and Rey glances up. One day she’s going to wipe that damnable crooked smirk off his face.

 

“Thank you, wife. I’m glad you came all this way to tell me that.”

 

He watches her through the messy strands of his hair which now fans out over his pillow and blocks half his face from her.

 

“Do you want me to leave, then?” she snaps.

 

The eye she cans eye blinks, his dark brow frowning. 

 

“I don’ know why you came here, Rey, so I can hardly answer that.”

 

He rolls his shoulders in a shrug and drops one of his hands to rest on his stomach while the other picks at the pristine second pillow next to him. 

 

I t’s Rey’s turn to frown at that. She eyes the overly large bed suspiciously, noticing how it seems to dominate the whole room in a n ocean of black satin.

 

“I’m surprised your bed’s empty.”

 

Another chuckle. The hand on his stomach strums its fingers almost as if it’s daring her to let her  attention drift downward.

 

“It doesn’t have to be.”

 

And of course there it is. Every time Rey starts to see something good in him her husband finds the perfect thing to say to infuriate her.

 

She crosses her arms tightly over her chest and glares at him, fighting the inexplicably strong urge to seize the nearest object and throw it on the ground in a childish fit.

 

Kylo laughs softly again, then he sighs. The offending hand lifts back up to his head to push the hair out of his face.

 

“Rey… why are you here?”

 

She pouts. He pouts back, mocking her expression.

 

“I was lonely. I made the mistake of thinking you could offer companionship.”

 

It’s not even a half answer.  Rey looks up at the window and it’s moon as she feels the weight of her husband’s gaze on her. 

 

“Did you expect me to say something like ‘you have no idea, now come on over and I’ll show you’?”

 

Rey’s cheeks warm again as she shakes her head.

 

“Something like that, yes,” she admits.

 

Another silence.  This time it stretches on and on. Rey makes no move to leave, though. What if Kylo’s challenging her? Daring her to back down and run away again just like she had this afternoon?

 

In fact it’s her husband who eventually gives in first. He makes a sort of self-important harrumph noise, and Rey sees him point at something behind her from the corner of her vision.

 

“Over there,” he says. “Along the back wall. I have many books there. Pick out a good one and read me a bedtime story.”

 

Rey blinks. She looks over her shoulder. Indeed, along the far side of the room is an expansive bookshelf. Below it lies a desk and a scattering of papers. Immediately the idea that there might be something there of interest to the Resistance pricks in Rey’s mind, and she looks back from the wall to her husband.

 

“A bedtime story?” she asks, deliberately making her voice as thick with condescension as she can. “You can’t be serious. Is that what you have your other wives do for you?”

 

Kylo smirks again and Rey rolls her eyes. She had walked right into that one, hadn’t she?

 

“Well apparently I’m a selfish, I’m spoiled, and I expect to get whatever I want whenever I want it. So yes, Rey, I want a bedtime story and I want it _now_.”

 

Rey had been walking towards the bookshelf but she stops to look back at Kylo in surprise.

 

“People tell you that? Really?”

 

He shrugs. Props his head up with a bent arm as he watches her.

 

“Not to my face, of course. But I hear them. They mean it, so I might as well act the part, right? Now pick a good one, darling wife, though I’m afraid I don’t have anything _illustrated_ to captivate your attention.”

 

He just had to bring  _that_ up didn’t he? Her husband truly was an insufferable ass.

 

Rey stomps to the books and makes a show of looking them over.

 

“I’m surprised you have anything else,” she mutters, glancing quickly at the papers nearby. Letters by the look of them, and in Kylo’s distinctive handwriting, though it’s too dark on this side of the room to see more.

 

“I don’t need them,” he answers back, sounding every bit as smug as she would expect him to be, “now try the book with the blue spine. It’s short stories, and I haven’t read it in quite a while.”

 

Bafflingly, most of Kylo’s books seem to be  _romances_ . Not tawdry sex tales or, perhaps, dull-as-a-butterknife tactical guides like Rey might have guessed. Rather, the tomes that were familiar to her were sweet romances or family stories or the occasional epic tale of adventure and  love.

 

W hen she reaches the blue book she pulls it out and holds it up to the light.

 

“Tales from the Old Country.”

 

The cover is faded and the spine is creased. The pages have a softness to them that could only be caused by years of being read and reread. 

 

“A favorite, I take it?” she asks as she walks back with the book in hand.

 

“From many years ago,” Kylo answers. “Now have a seat and start with the first one, if you would be so kind.”

 

Rey looks around. The only chair in the bedroom was back behind her next to the desk where there was hardly any light.

 

Kylo pats the edge of the bed, and Rey raises an eyebrow.

 

“Plenty of room,” he tells her. “You said it yourself.”

 

Rey eyes the empty swath of silk covered mattress suspiciously. 

 

“I don’t think that-”

 

“Would it help if I promise to keep my hands to myself? Or at least to try? I can’t guarantee that the sight of my wife’s permanently scowling face won’t push me over the edge of self control.”

 

Rey snaps the book closed and tests the weight of it against her palm.

 

“And if you go over that edge you’ll find your face very well acquainted with the spine of this book, understand?”  
  
Kylo smiles and pulls his hand back, retreating it back to his side of the bed. Rey sits on the very edge primly, trying to match the elegant and stiff posture she’d seen some of the other wives take when they were trying to look proper. 

 

Then she starts the first chapter, beginning her narration stiffly at first then quickly warming to the rather exciting story that unfolds. True to his word, Kylo keeps his distance, though every time Rey glances at him he’s smiling at her until he finally falls asleep.

 

Rey blows out the candle before she leaves, retreating back into the tangle of palace hallways just as the moon starts to fade into the glow of dawn.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, last chapter was so short but hopefully this one made up for it??? And how about Kylo, he’s about as smooth an operator as his granddaddy was. But what would Reylo be without awkward, confusing flirting? Now that I’ve had Paige’s character introduced, of course I have to bring Rose in to help balance out all these OCs! She won’t be for a little while, I don’t think, but she’ll definitely have a role as we approach the second act of this story. 
> 
> Next chapter: Where Rey discovers that the only thing that moves faster than the speed of light is the speed of gossip.
> 
> And, as always, you can find me on tumblr still at [ lost-inthesunlight](https://lost-inthesunlight.tumblr.com/) or now on twitter at [ @Ava_Avdal](https://twitter.com/Ava_Avdal) :)


	7. Any Questions, Class?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Rey finds 1001 reasons again to not trust her new sisters, and then Kylo shows up to make things even worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternative title:
> 
> M’Lady Needs a Soothing Ointment
> 
> Also: LibreOffice has started screwing up lines of this file and making them jump around. I tried to correct them but please let me know if something is randomly repeated! I’ll try to fix this problem before the next chapter.

“Now are we emphasizing your _long night_ out, or are we hiding the effects?”

 

If Rey was to be brutally honest with herself, she would have to admit that her knowledge of all things wasn’t quite as complete as she’d like to think it was. Sure, she was an educated woman, surprisingly so given her humble background, but there were certain gaps in understanding that sometimes reared their head at awkward times.

 

Like now, for instance. Despite Rey being an innocent, she possessed just enough knowledge of carnality to assume that Mitaka was making some sort of double entendre. Of what, exactly, alluded her, but her traitorous cheeks still blushed nonetheless.

 

“I have nothing to hide,” she says quickly.

 

Then she eyes the pots and creams and powders that Mitaka had brought with him. He deftly mixes two of them together in such a proportion to almost completely match her skin color and she sighs, weary shoulders deflating.

 

“Now now, M’Lady, I understand your enthusiasm about what happened last night- heavens know I’ve seen _that_ look before- but perhaps it might be best not to flaunt it anymore than you have to? Your sisters are already less than overjoyed that you’ve now consummated your marriage, there’s no need to rub it in their faces.”

 

Again Rey’s blush grows, this time blooming into a full on rose fire that makes Mitaka tut as he has to adjust the compound he’s about to spackle her face with.

 

“We- we didn’t-”

 

Rey doesn’t even know how to explain the strangely serene encounter she had with her husband to herself, let alone to the rather flamboyant barber of the harem who seemed bound and convinced she and Kylo had finalized their union.

 

“Hush hush, M’Lady, there’s no reason to be bashful. Especially not around me. Around the others perhaps, but honestly is exactly what I’m here for.” H

 

e swirls the thick, beige cream across the tops of her cheeks and the bridge of her nose with a feather-soft brush. Rey raises an eyebrow and fights the urge to sneeze from the gentle tickle.

 

“So everyone knows I went to Kylo’s room last night, then?”

 

Mitaka only smiles in answer, tipping his head to the side and giving her a rather mischievous angled glance.

 

“Oh kriff,” she mutters.

 

Another layer of the substance is applied and Rey leans forward closer to the mirror. It’s such an odd thing seeing herself all fussed up like this. She can’t even see her freckles, her complexion is now so flawless.

 

A poised hand beckoning across the air guides her back into her seat and Rey fidgets nervously with the loose fabric of her nightgown as Mitaka continues doing whatever it is he’s doing to her face. He had come to her bright and early in the morning, just as soon as the first rays of light had started to warm the horizon from her bedroom window. Rey hadn’t slept a wink since she’d left Kylo’s room, but it hadn’t been so long at all before Mitaka’s arrival and him bringing the insinuation wave of gossip that ad apparently already swept across the halls of the palace.

 

_M’Lady Rey had been seen walking the corridors late at night._

_A maid had spoken to a morning guard who’d talked to a night guard who had told him M’Lady ad been seen heading to the royal wing._

_Someone else had told someone else who had told a scullery who had told the a cook that M’Lady had been in her husband’s room for over **two hours** , and when she had left she had been adjusting her robe and stumbling. _

 

“Because it was cold and drafty and I hadn’t been wearing slippers!” Rey argued.

 

She had left out the part that she had lingered longer than she had had to in Kylo’s room to finish the chapter. Or how really all they had done was talk, and even that had been more listening than talking. No one would have believed her anyhow, and Mitaka’s wry smile and low-toned offer of some sort of “soothing ointment” had snapped Rey’s mouth shut faster than anything.

 

So apparently everyone in the whole damned palace were now convinced that she had been intimate with her husband. Rey dreads- _dreads_ \- going to the harem this morning. If her harpy sisters had been cruel to her before when she had done nothing but simply exist, she can hardly imagine how they’ll be now.

 

“More rouge?” Mitaka asks, brandishing a small metal pot decorated with fine filigree at her.

 

Rey peers in. There’s something pink and powdery there, and it smells faintly of berries. At this point her stomach rumbles, reminding her both of how long it had been since she’d last eaten and the one silver lining to the harem: it was filled with snacks at every corner. Life can be an awful thing, but snacking has a way of making the prospects of spending the day at the den of bitches a little brighter.

 

When she reaches for the offering, however, Mitaka simply nudges her hand away with the same brush. In it dips into the powder and, when he applies it to her cheeks, Rey nods in approval.

 

“I look like I’ve been exercising,” she says. “That’s good. Now I look like I haven't just been laying around playing music badly, gossiping, and placing shiny foil over my nails.”

 

An amused snort is Mitaka’s reply.

 

“No wonder your sisters have been so sweet to you,” he comments.

 

Another phial is produced and he starts to unscrew it then stops himself.

 

“What’s that?” Rey asks.

 

Mitaka shakes his head and puts the metal cylinder away.

 

“Nevermind. You’d only eat it, anyhow. Now let’s get you dressed. You’re a happily married woman now in the height of the flush of youth, it’s time for you to look the part.”

 

With great fanfare the harem’s barber throws open the doors to Rey’s ample wardrobe, leaving her watching in silent alarm as one diaphanous swath of fabric after another is pulled out and draped in a pile over her bed. Rey can clearly see the pattern of her bedsheets even through them, his choices are so sheer.

 

“I’m- I’m still going to be decent, aren’t I?” she asks, standing up.

 

Blue. Blue and white. Blue and white and with a shiny hint of purple. Those are the colors of the loose and blowing collection of chiffon that await for her to step into. Rey waits for an underlayer that has yet to make its appearance.

 

“Of course, M’Lady. I always dress every wife to impress.”

 

A quick beckon of the barber's hand and Rey reluctantly steps forward, giving up her nightgown as her last line of defense against shocking impropriety.

 

*

 

“Well didn’t you just blossom into a woman overnight?”

 

“Our husband has a way of doing that, doesn’t he?”

 

“Indeed he does, Helana. I had wondered what had taken him so long to have at the newcomer.”

 

“Perhaps he had to get his nerve up. I know I would.”

 

“Maybe that’s why she had to tart herself up like this, to make up for her _obvious_ shortcomings.”

 

Both Serena and Ayana’s eyes slid significantly towards Rey chest. Her gown, if such a construction could be called that, was highly sheer in certain key places. Rey hadn’t even realized that until she caught a glimpse of herself in the low lights of the harem. Mitaka had claimed that it would inspire confidence in her, but it had turned out to be a liability in more ways than one.

 

“ _Sisters_ ,” Rey has to force the word out through gritted teeth, “I don’t know what exactly you’re implying, but anything that may have gone on between my husband and-”

 

“Oh dear, are you sore? Is that why you’re in crubby mood?”

 

Helana reaches out to, presumably, stroke Rey’s cheek. She’s immediately slapped away and Rey dodges around, hurrying past the two pseudo twins and their horrendous third party before they can subject her to any more of their tyranny.

 

Serena though still has the nerve to follow her, this time correcting Rey on how she ‘waddles like a Bantha’ and clearly she’s never been taught to present herself like a lady.

 

Just to make a statement, some sort of statement, Rey grabs the nearest tray of snacks off a table and begins shoveling the sweet honeyed treats into her mouth by the literal handful.

 

“Didn’t hear you, what was it you were saying?”

 

She deliberately garbles the words through a mouthful of food, and finally her tormentor takes the hint and disappears in a flurry of appalled scowls and heavy-handed vanilla perfume. Rey sighs then, enjoying the brief moment of reprieve. Finishing off her sweets, next she walks around the periphery of the harem, already becoming used to the disapproving glances her other sisters send her way as she goes.

 

Rey picks up a plate and begins to fill it with the various delicacies on offer. Dates and figs, elaborately twisted pastries, little meaty things on a stick. If it weren’t for the venomous denizens of the harem, Rey could easily find this a most agreeable place.

 

She situates herself on a corner bench as she chows down and takes a moment to breathe and relax now that she’s being left alone. At this of day, the spaces are mostly clear. Rey can’t see Serena and her gang anymore, which is somewhat concerning, but it also means she has most of this main room to herself barring the occasional nearly-nude sister wife that saunters past.

 

Okay. So here she is. Now that she has some food in her belly after going a good many hours, Rey is starting to feel a little more optimistic about the whole harem prospect. Maybe she could get some reading done, then? The good books and one dreadful one were back in her room, but the harem’s paltry library still had some ways to offer to pass the time until dinner.

 

Unfortunately her dreams of a relatively quiet day in prison are dashed by a clearing of the throat behind her as she moves towards the library.

 

When she turns, Alyss is there and she’s watching Rey with a rather stern expression. Rey gapes at her, shocked that the Resistance spy would be so bold as to speak to her in the open.

 

“Nevan wishes to speak with you, sister.”

 

Her tone is cold and distant. Rey hesitates before nodding. All eyes are on the two of them as Alyss leads her through to the back hallway of rooms. These were the chambers where Rey had first seen the General being… _entertained_ by Ayana and Helana, and also where she herself had hid in a closet when Nevan and Alyss had passed by.

 

When she and Rey are safely out of earshot of the rest of the harem, Alsyss leans close and speaks to her in a whisper.

 

“We must not look friendly at all with each other. Never come up to me to chat or anything like that, let me do it myself if I need to speak with you in private.”

 

Rey nods and ponders this as she leads her forward down to the very last room. This was the exact same room where the General had been, but now when Alyss opens the door the room is well lit and free of either smoke or sex.

 

Inside is Nevan alone, and she tips her head at Rey and Alyss as they enter.

 

“Hello,” she offers, her voice smoothly level.

 

It annoys Rey how Nevan is taller than her. She doesn’t like having to look up to anyone in the harem, and especially not their seeming pack queen. The blonde in question also moves with a sort of slinky grace that serves to remind Rey how terribly out of her element she is. Rey matches Nevan’s head bob as her best guess of what an appropriate greeting is.

 

“What’s this about?” she asks.

 

“Serena has informed me of your terrible manners,” she says. “I believe it’s well overdue for the next chapter of your education. Since it seems that you’re going to be staying with us now, we can’t have you being an embarrassment in public, can we?”

 

She gestures towards the low table behind her. On it is a full dinner set up that Rey assumes she’s supposed to practice on.

 

The urge to tell Nevan exactly where she can lodge the matching dinner plates and numerous dainty utensils is strong, but Alyss moves past her and takes a seat at one side. She studiously avoids Rey’s confused gaze, though, and Rey gets it. The more they act like they dislike or have nothing to do with each other, the safer it will be for them all.

 

“ _Fine_.”

 

Rey rolls her eyes and scoots over to the opposite side of the table. Tries not to envision exactly where the General had been mounting one of the twins on this very same settee. Possibly right where she was sitting now, in fact.

 

Rey straightens up and Nevan clicks her tongue behind her. Cold hands grip Rey’s shoulders and pull them back, drawing her further upright.

 

“Don’t slouch,” she says. “You have terrible enough posture when standing, no excuses for it at all sitting. Follow Alyss’s example. Our second youngest wife has already had a few lessons ahead of you.”

 

...Right. Rey tries to mirror the redhead’s posture. Alyss had said something very vague about how the resistance had tried to make her Kylo’s favorite. Or maybe it wasn’t exactly that, but Rey hadn’t paid that much attention until now. Somehow she’ll have to find a way to talk to her in private, but given the intrusive nature of the harem that won’t be an easy task.

 

“Now what?” Rey asks, only half-feigning boredom.

 

“Now I’m going to show you basic skills like how to eat without half your meal going down the front of your dress.”

 

Nevan doesn’t try to hide her derisive tone, so Rey doesn’t try to hide her exaggerated eye-roll. Though maybe it was a fair point since the, to politely put it, décolletage area of her sheer gown was now a scratchy, crumby mess. Worth it, because it scared off her most ill-spirited sister and gave her a moment’s peace, but still…

 

“Now,” Nevan steps behind Alyss who immediately straightens up that little bit more, “pretend that your sister here is the wife of a high ranking foreign dignitary. She has invited you to the parlor for tea and polite conversation. Get started from there and I’ll correct each mistake you make as they happen.”

 

Rey frowns. This is going to be very unpleasant, isn’t it?

 

“How long will this take?” she asks.

 

Nevan sighs and shakes her head.

 

“With you? Probably all afternoon.”

 

*

 

Etiquette lessons in a sex room? Well that was a first, though unfortunately unlikely a last.

 

Rey leaves her “lesson” feel grumpy, thoroughly chided, and again desperately needing a moment’s reprieve. After she had painfully blundered her way through the afternoon tea role play, she had hoped that would be the end of it. No such luck, the next hour or more had been spent with Nevan relentlessly poking and prodding at her as she attempts to teach Rey how to walk like a lady and stand like a lady. That was followed by, if it was absolutely necessary to sit or rest, how to perch precariously on the edge of appropriately ass-high objects while keeping your stomach in, shoulders back, and your hands clasped demurely over your crotch like a lady.

 

The last point Rey greatly wanted to argue that it would be wholly unnecessary if they didn’t have to wear these ridiculously revealing gown to begin with, but after a nearly unbearable few hours, Rey managed to persevere.

 

Her torture was hardly over, though, because no sooner than she had stepped back out into the hall had Nevan handed her off to Ayana for ‘a different sort of education’.

 

Alyss had been able to skip the second part of Nevan’s ladylike lessons, but now the redhead spy was waiting with her head bowed low and a large velvet parcel in her arms. That was all paired with a decidedly embarrassed wince on her face.

 

“Um, I don’t know what this is-”

 

“Hush and stop being difficult,” Nevan scolds her, following behind her. “While your _indulgences_ last night came as a surprise, I meant it when I said I won’t have you being an embarrassment to me.”

 

The tall blonde steps to the side, blocking Rey’s only route of escape back into the rest of the harem.

 

“Trust me, I’m not looking forward to this anymore than you are,” Ayana adds.

 

Rey mutely lets herself be lead, or goosed with a series of pinches between the shoulder blades, to another nearby door. Alyss opens it and hands Rey the velvet package, whispering a very soft ‘good luck’ before scuttling off.

 

Inside the room is lit far dimmer than the others, but it is laid out similarly except for instead of the settee there is a large bed covered in black satin. In front of it is a table with a scattering of strange devices that look rather suspiciously like-

 

“ _Oh you_ _can’t be serious?!_ ”

 

Rey almost shouts the words, stumbling back away from the collection of sex toys as if they were a pit of snakes. She turns to make a run for it and this time Nevan grips her arm and doesn’t let go, the pointed tips of her nails digging uncomfortably into Rey’s skin.

 

“You want to sleep your way to the top, you’re going to learn to do it properly,” the blonde hisses. “Normally Serena gets the task of showing the new recruits the details, but given your association with each other I was kind enough to spare you with Ayana’s company instead. I can always change your mind, if you prefer, but be warned that sometimes Serena loses her patience.”

 

Whatever the hell that means, but when Nevan lets her go Rey reluctantly shuffles inside. Better to choose the better of two evils, since apparently that’s what her life is like now.

 

Nevan closes the door behind her as she goes, leaving Rey and one half of the fake twin duo eyeing each other up and down.

 

“Kriff, let’s just get on with this,” Rey says.

 

For someone ostensibly quite pretty, Miss Ayana certainly seems to wear a scowl well. She gestures at a chair with a sharp flick of her finger and then goes over to the table and picks up a book. Rey immediately recognizes that it was one of the others from the closet where she’d found the instructional _tome_.

 

“Right then,” Ayana says tightly as she opens to the first page, “let’s start with the basics. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

 

*

 

Rey has had some bad, terrible, no good, hideous days in her life, so it really says something when she decides that today is right up there with the best of them.

 

It wasn’t about breaking her own convictions and seeking her husband for company when she needed it. It wasn’t about getting spotted and now having her reputation forever tarnished for something she didn’t even do. Nor was it the etiquette lesson, the bruised ego and prodded shoulders, the bloody well pornographically educational hour she spent with a woman she sorta kinda pretty much despised. Hell, it wasn’t even the pervasive Sword of Damocles of the Resistance’s scheme hanging over Rey that ruined today forever and ever.

 

No, it was none of that that did it in. The final straw the broke the camel’s back of Rey’s tenuous patience came from her husband himself.

 

He had shown up shortly before dinner. Apparently his arrival into the harem had been unexpected, because all at once Rey had gone from sulking quietly into her second or third glass of wine at the sidelines of the room to being treated to the repulsive spectacle of half the harem parading themselves around her husband and fawning over him. Very much like ewes circling a shepherd for a milking, and that comparison alone was enough to turn the wine to vinegar in Rey’s stomach.

 

She tries to ignore it. Tries to study the shadows on the ceiling or the flickering cast lights of candles. The sister’s soft baby-coos were impossible to drown out though.

 

When she looks back over at Kylo, he’s still surrounded and making a fake-looking show of being overwhelmed by the attention he’s receiving. Perhaps Rey _had_ overstated a tad when she said half the harem. Truthfully it’s just Serena, the twins, and two other nameless sisters who are draping themselves over him, playing with his hair, or simply standing a scant breadth away in an exaggerated pose.

 

A little away from mess that stands Nevan, sipping her own wine and laughing at something that Kylo leans over to say to her ear.

 

Something deep inside Rey flares up at that. A mixture of anger, hurt, and the bitterest of jealousy. This isn’t the same man she talked to so quietly last night. Not the quiet, open, and seemingly gentle prince who’d teased her before demanding a bedtime story.

 

No, this version of Kylo is living up to a harsh truth of every negative thing Rey has ever thought about him.

 

She’s had enough. She’s had more than enough. This is unbearable.

 

Rey sets her drink down, turns on her heel, and starts stomping for the door. Some of the other wives look at her in confusion, but it’s Alyss who tries to stop her with a light touch on her elbow.

 

“Sister-”

 

“Shut up.”

 

Rey pushes her away, perhaps somewhat harder than she had intended because the smaller redheaded woman stumbles before catching herself. The brief display causes a rolling murmur among the nearby wives, and finally brings Kylo to remember that she exists.

 

“Rey?” he calls out.

 

She glares sideways at him, mentally counting the paces before she’s out of the harem. Kylo frowns, but his stupid expression of surprise only makes her more cross with him. He really doesn’t get it, does he? What kind of a selfish _idiot_ has she been wedded to?

 

“Ignore her, my Prince,” Serena, the sister planted front and center to his chest, coos. “She’s no fun at all. Nothing like us.”

 

Then she catches his chin, pulls his head down, and presses her lips to his.

 

Rey doesn’t exactly remember rage screaming, but she must have because her ears are ringing. Or maybe that could be from when she flying tackled the wretched witch and sent them both slamming into the floor. Kylo had been caught in the middle of, no doubt catching a few errant elbows or knees himself, but it was as if there was a red haze surrounding all parts of Rey’s vision that weren’t filled with Serena’s hateful face.

 

The other woman fights back of course, her long claw-like nails scratching and pushing as Rey’s hands fight to close around her neck and give her a right proper choking.

 

From launch to finish it only takes a few seconds before the ever vigilant guards pry Rey away from her prey.

 

Kylo himself stumbles back, wide-eyed and thoroughly rumpled. Rey blinks, her rage clearing incrementally. All around her the other wives form a circle, each one of them gaping at her in disbelief.

 

“Well what do you know,” Rey’s hoarse voice confirms that yes, in fact, she had been screaming, “looks like I finally shut all of you harpies up. My lucky day after all.”

 

With that she turns, yanking her arms free of the guard’s hold on her and leaving the harem without another word.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter, this one didn’t take me too long did it? I can’t guarantee any sort of schedule but the next chapter is actually already written so I’ll post it in a few days. Maybe Friday to give me time to edit?
> 
> Next chapter:  
> Rey’s one pissed off sister wife. Looks like someone’s got some apologizing to do, but you can trust Kylo not to screw THAT up too.


	8. The Pretty Flush of Married Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Because you’re mine, I walk the line.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! Got badly blocked and I decide to rewrite this chapter from scratch. Also sorry for any errors, I’m posting this late at night (2nd posting of the day!) and I’m tired but if I wait gods know when I’ll get this out otherwise!

All Rey could think about was getting out of there.

 

Going out the window, leaving the palace forever, never seeing it’s hate filled walls or her husband ever again. That’s all Rey wanted. All she _told_ herself she wanted.

 

And yet nothing could be further from the truth.

 

The harem guards had shadowed her only out of the chambers themselves. When she departed, she was left on her own beyond the confused gazes of the occasional passerby.

 

Rey moves quickly, heading immediately back to her room. On the outside, she may have looked frantic, but on the inside she was still fuming. Fuming, and now terrified.

 

She had attacked one of her ‘sisters’. Gods know that she had provocation enough, but that didn’t change the fact that she’d attacked another sister, and a high ranking one at that. That alone would be enough to put her in serious jeopardy with the harem, but Kylo himself had gotten caught in the flurry of limbs and anger.

 

Would she be punished for that then? Probably. But it’s a punishment Rey has no intention of having to endure.

 

Which brought her right back to her anger.

 

When she slammed her door closed, she did it with _force_. The resounding bang felt right, but not nearly enough. She’d rather have her hus- have Kylo’s- head caught in the door, that would have served him right.

 

How. Dare. He.

 

_How dare he?!_

 

That filthy, debauched, cruel, insensitive, thoughtless, childish, lecherous pig of a man had kissed another woman. Kissed _Serena_ , who was quite possibly the sister wife Rey despised the most. And then the thick-headed _idiot_ had the nerve to look surprised at Rey’s presence, let alone her reaction.

 

So that’s how it is, then? He didn’t know she was there so that’s how he was going to behave? And now Rey herself was the one who was going to be punished even though he… he…

 

Rey wipes her face with the butter-soft sleeve of her dress, hating how even that classless gesture makes some part of herself hurt even more to ruin something so fine.

 

That’s it. She’s leaving. She’s out.

 

Rey grabs the trunk the bottom of her closet that she had brought with her when she came here. When she hauls it out she nearly trips over the long hem of her gown in her bleary fury. It was a small trunk, so good thing it was her marriage had been so short lived or she might have had trouble storing all the keepsakes.

 

Keepsakes? Hardly. Keepsakes means memories, and Rey want to take nothing away from this. Nothing from Kylo. Just the items she had nicked herself to sell, and none of the…

 

Rey slumps to her knees then, the wind absolutely being knocked out of her as she stares at the pile of books Kylo had given her. They were a gift. Not even a selfish gift, unless you count that certain one of them in particular. People don’t give her things. She finds them or makes them, but is almost never given.

 

And of course all it can make Rey think about is last night. She’d gone to his room and read to him, of all the strangeness. It had been a sweet moment, something far too out of place for her. She should have known it would never last.

 

“Goodbye then.”

 

Rey pushes the books aside roughly, her eyes blurring even more as she watches them scatter across the floor from her careless movement. The journal Kylo had given her gets the same treatment, though that one she picks up and leaves it open on her bed to perhaps write out a goodbye note before she departs.

 

And that’s it. That’s all she had in her whole little world. A few stolen pieces of trinket, and the clothes on her back.

 

That’s all she has to show for these last few days of her life. In one thoughtless move she had ruined everything that she had never wanted, and now she’s free of it.

 

So why does she feel so empty?

 

A shiver of pure misery runs down along her spine and Rey slumps deeper into the floor. She picks up a small, engraved vase that she had purloined from the harem that had fallen out of her trunk and tosses it back in with a weak flip of her arm. And then her wedding ring catches the candlelight and she buries her face into both her hands, feeling the pinch of the not un-sizeable rock on it indent itself against her cheek.

 

Will she have to give that back too, then? Of course. _Of course_. It’s no doubt the most valuable thing in the whole room. Surely Kylo will want it back, if for no other reason then to give to her _replacement_.

 

That thought is what finally overflows her tears from her resolve not to cry. She’ll go back to being nothing, having even less than she did when she came here because her trust in Luke lays in tatters, and Kylo will simply find someone else prettier, better, and more willing.

 

Any woman in the kingdom would think she’s the worst of fools for leaving now. They would tell her to stay and fight. Beg, plead, apologize, or bring the claws out harder. Do anything it takes to get back in Kylo’s graces and not be thrown away to the gutter.

 

She should go. Or stay. Rey doesn’t know what’s the right thing to do, and now her own heart is aching with each beat, trying to tell her a message she’s apparently too stupid to understand.

 

Go. Don’t go.

 

She has _nothing_.

 

She’ll _miss him_. Or at least the Kylo he pretended to be.

 

Time is wasting. If she doesn’t flee and soon the choice will be taken away from her.

 

Except she can’t bring herself to move from where she had fallen. Rey stays like that for a good few minutes, crying softly into her palms, until a booming pounding on her door snaps her head back up.

 

“Rey!” Kylo voice- Kylo’s very angry voice- echoes from the other side. “Open up right now!”

 

She blinks at the door. The knocking pounds again, this time even louder and more rapid.

 

“ _ **Rey!**_ ” he shouts.

 

Rey flinches despite herself.

 

Gods, everyone in the whole karking palace will hear this. Or at least hear _about_ this, that’s for certain.

 

A third pounding and then a silence falls. Rey holds her breath, waiting. The silence is followed by a jangle of keys, and _that’s_ what immediately snaps her out of her stupor.

 

She rises unsteadily, tugging smooth the now rather sad looking web of garments that had once been so beguiling, and moves to the door to open it. Kylo beats her to it, though, throwing it open wide and Rey has to scuttle back otherwise it would have hit her square on the nose.

 

For a long moment he stares at her open-mouthed, his brows contorted into a tight V of anger. Then whatever rebuke he had been about to throw at her fades into nothingness as he takes her in. Behind him are two guards, and Rey looks from one to the other than back to her speechless husband.

 

“What are they here for?” she asks, bracing herself for the worst.

 

Her voice comes out as a thready whisper, and Kylo’s expression softens incrementally. He straightens, looming tall over her, and Rey instinctively draws the mostly sheer fabric of her dress tighter over her chest.

 

“My own security,” he answers. “They had insisted on accompanying me here after what you did back there.”

 

He steps a shade closer, blocking Rey’s view of the guards, then looks back over his shoulder to address them.

 

“You won’t be needed,” he tells them. “Return to your stations.”

 

A beat passes, but then the guards nod and go, leaving Rey alone with her husband. He steps closer again, forcing Rey to retreat into the center of the room to keep distance as he closes the door behind him.

 

Now, in the softer flickering light of her bedroom, Rey can see the start of an angry red welt bloom across his cheek and jaw. Whether she did it herself by accident or Kylo had been caught by Serena’s own attempts to defend herself hardly matters.

“I’m sorry!” she blurts out, trying to outrun the worst of what’s to come. “Not for trying to throttle Serena because, believe me, she deserved it, but... but I am sorry to have hit you. Please...”

 

She stares at the ground as she recites the speech she had been preparing in her head. Kylo doesn’t answer at first, and his silence only makes nerves grow more frayed.

 

He turns then, looking around her room. No doubt taking in the chaotic scene she had been making just a few minutes before. Rey’s clothes are scattered across the floor, with the black training suit he had given her haphazardly tossed on top of the bed. Rey had thought about wearing that as she sneaked out of the palace, and now it looks all the more incriminating next to the open trunk that’s not even half full.

 

“You’re not taking much with you,” he finally comments. “I guess you don’t have anything to your name worth keeping.”

 

It feels like such a slap in the face. Rey winces, scrunching her eyes close to stop even a single drop of the fresh waves of tears she feels welling up from escaping.

 

“No,” she answers.

 

One word. Plain. Simple. No point denying the obvious or delaying the inevitable.

 

The air shifts as she feels Kylo move closer, but she still won’t look at him.

 

“I see,” he says.

 

Silence falls again. Rey knows so clearly that he’s waiting for her to say something more. When his scrutiny becomes unbearable, she turns to flee, perhaps lock herself in the bathroom, and he catches her arm by the bend of her elbow.

 

“Rey.”

 

His hand is warm against her skin. She was so used to being cold by now, either from the hardships of her old life or the near-nothing wardrobe her new one insists on putting her in. His palm is rougher than she would have thought, but warm, and there’s a distinct sort of electricity that spreads along her at the extended touch.

 

She lets him turn her to face him. Rey’s gaze flickers up to meet his eyes for just a second before she looks away again.

 

“Where were you planning on going?” he asks softly. “To your uncle’s then? Back to your old hovel in the desert?”

 

Her _hov_ _el_ \- Rey tries to jerk her arm to free herself, but his grip follows her with each bounce until she gives up.

 

“What do you even know about my old home, Your Highness? Of my old life?”

 

She square her chin and tries to look brave. Tries to look like more than a scared, borderline hysterical little girl caught playing dress up.

 

“I know enough, _Rey_ ,” he answers. Cooly. Evenly. This is a different version of him than either of the ones she knows. “I know enough that I can’t imagine any situation so bad here that you would chose to return to it. We had a deal, Rey. Are you really so miserable that you can’t see our month together to its end?”

 

Rey takes in a shaky breath. Kylo’s other hand takes her other arm, keeping her from running away from his question with his gentle but firm grip.

 

She tries and fails on her first few attempts. Emotions. Something so intangible, and now he’s asking her to put them into words. So hard to explain to him what she doesn’t fully understand herself.

 

“It’s too much,” she finally says. “Putting up with you, our marriage, the agreement, the harpy wives.” The Resistance, the sex lesson, the cruel whispers uttered deliberately too loud, and Uncle Luke’s unknown role orchestrating all of it. “Yes, Kylo, I’m _miserable_. It’s better to be free and suffering than to be taken somewhere where I don't even recognize myself.”

 

Kylo gapes at her and Rey as to fight very hard not to roll her eyes or kick him in the shin for the stupid, dim-witted, uncomprehending look he’s giving her.

 

“But… but you have _everything_ you could want, Rey. Food, clothing, comfort. I know your first few meeting with your sisters haven’t gone well, but you _attacked_ Serena! Why, Rey? Why did you do that?”

 

_Because she kissed you._

 

Rey almost blurts that out, but she stops herself in time.

 

“I… I’ve had a long day,” she truthfully lies, “it’s been too much. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

 

Now Kylo catches her chin and tips her head up. She can see the skepticism play out across his face, and the deeper frown begin to curl his full lips down.

 

He’s not buying it. She needs to think fast or he may well jump to the right conclusions.

 

“Nevan made me take a sex class with Ayana. It was horrible.”

 

Kylo freezes stalk still, one of his hands on her shoulder and the other on her chin. He silently stares into her eyes as he processes this new piece of information for so long that Rey wonders if he hadn’t perhaps misheard her.

 

Then his mouth twitches, curling up this time.

 

“You did what?” he asks, daring her to repeat herself.

 

Rey flushes, unsure if it’s from the memory or the now amused and heated gaze her husband is giving her.

 

“With Ayana… there was a book and she- er, she went over some things from that. Then she had this… gods, Kylo. There was things she tried to demonstrate on it and I would have none of it. It was a terrible, rotten way to spend an afternoon. I hate her. I hate them all.”

 

That. Had been. Dreadful.

 

Rey was half repulsed, half curious about read _that_ book on her own, but certainly not with one of Serena’s bitch gang telling her to ‘reach out and give it a try, stop being such a prude’. No. Truly the stuff nightmares were made of.

 

Kylo, on the other hand, being the obnoxious version of her husband she’s known the longest, breaks out into a wide grin.

 

“I made the best choice with you, Rey. Truly.”

 

Oh what the hells is that even supposed to mean? How could he joke when she was just a few minutes out from flying the coop?

 

“Why me?” she demands. “Why did you chose me when you could have had anyone else?”

 

It’s not the first time Rey’s said this question. Kylo rolls his thumbs in a circle over her bicep, and the gesture both tenses and oddly soothes her.

 

“You are so different from my other wives, Rey.”

 

He says it low against her ear and Rey hadn’t even realized that he was _that_ close to her until goosebumps break out along every part of her exposed skin.

 

She sniffs. Fidgets.

 

“Am I?”

 

“Yes. They want to be here, and you hate me. You’d rather freeze or starve to death in your desert squalor than live in comfort and privilege.”

 

Rey closes her eyes as Kylo rests his forehead against the crown of her head. They were having a moment together, and for all of Rey’s efforts to be a woman of the world she finds herself at an utter loss how to respond.

 

“What do you know about me?” she repeats. “You know nothing. Nothing at all.”

 

His breath is calming. Soothing. Even.

 

“I know that you can live in places none of the rest of them would last a day in. I know that you’re very innocent, and you don’t understand things not from a lack of intelligence or education, but from a fearful place that stems from that innocence. And I know that you’re crushingly lonely but you would do anything to hide that.”

 

Is this what intimacy was? Rey is both repulsed by the frankness of his word and the assumptions behind them as much as she’s riveted to the spot.

 

“How could you possibly know that? Are you really so arrogant?”

 

Rey pulls back then, and Kylo lets her but not by very far.

 

“Just arrogant then? You’ve called me far worse, so I must be doing better in your eyes.”

 

The hand on her shoulders moves up. It places itself behind her head, and the other slides from her chin to cradle her cheek instead.

 

“Are you angry that I kissed Serena?” he asks.

 

Rey flushes both hot and cold. Serena kissed _him_ , she wants to remind him, but she finds she scarcely has enough air in her lungs to form so much as a whisper. So she nods instead, letting her mind drift to a higher pitch that drowns everything else out.

 

Kylo smiles then. This close she can see every tiny hairline around his eyes, or how his moles and freckles shift along with his face.

 

“Jealous?” he asks.

 

She shakes her head, her mouth suddenly very dry indeed.

 

“No? Oh, alright. Perhaps you’d rather settle the score, then?”

 

The ringing in her ears resonates, rooting her as firmly to the spot as the heaviest of weights. Kylo waits. Rey swallows, her eyelids feeling quite heavy.

 

His lips press against hers. Soft. Butterfly light and every bit as fleeting.

 

Then he pulls back, and Rey has never had any man look at her like he is right now.

 

It was barely a kiss. Barely a touch. And yet somehow Rey can’t find her breath, it’s as if her whole chest is being squeezed by an invisible band of emotion.

 

“Close your eyes and I’ll do it again, Rey.”

 

He makes it sound like she has a choice. Rey’s already lost this fight. Locked in place. Held tight by both curiosity and fear.

 

She closes her eyes, and this time he does it properly.

 

Kylo kisses her slowly. Very slowly, deliberately. Sweetly rolling his lips over hers as if he’s seeking out the ways that please him the most. A bolt of a shiver shoots along Rey’s spine, but she holds herself still for him.

 

He’s a gentleman now, so out of character, and when he pulls away Rey nearly falls into him because her toes were honestly curling.

 

Her husband huffs, his thumb stroking her cheek affectionately. His touch burns, and Rey doesn’t have to look into a mirror to know it’s because she’s flushing flame red now.

 

“Married life seems to bring such a pretty color to your cheeks, my darling.”

 

It’s not what he says but the way he says it. Rey turns her head then, and this time Kylo lets her. Gives her that tiny bit of privacy to collect her thoughts.

 

A gentleman, but that doesn’t mean that he’s patient.

 

“So,” he asks, no shortage of smugness returning to his voice, “did I kiss Serena like that?”

 

How infuriating. If Rey weren’t still in a daze, she’d rightly stomp his foot.

 

“Serena kissed _you_ ,” she repeats.

 

Kylo’s laugh tickles her eyelashes. Somehow her face smiles even if she tells it not too.

 

“Rey,” he guides her chin back to face him and she lets him, “will you stay?”

 

The pressure in her chest tightens. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s making her very aware of itself.

 

She nods, unable to form the single syllable required to answer properly.

 

“You’ll be here tomorrow?” he pressed.

 

She nods again. One more day. And then another. That’s how she’ll make it through this, though now what she’s fighting for seems more unclear than ever.

 

“And tonight? Will you come to my bed tonight?”

 

Rey’s eyes flick up at that to meet his, and there’s pure mischief dancing back at her. The cocky little bastard phrased it like that just to watch her squirm, didn’t he? The return of her ever present annoyance finally brings her voice back with it.

 

“I would like to read the next chapter,” she says, voice barely above a whisper, “but I don’t think you know what it will cost me. My _lovely sisters_ would be truly unbearable if I were to be seen in your room tonight after all of this.”

 

Kylo lets go of her, untwining his limbs from around her. Rey tries to primly straighten up her dress, and that action makes his crooked smile lopside even more.

 

“You’re a very creative young lady, Miss Rey. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

 

He bends down part way, catching her hand and bringing it up to his lips to kiss her knuckles.

 

Then he turns and goes only a few paces towards the door before stopping and looking back over his shoulder.

 

“Oh? And Rey? Your punishment?”

 

Rey had been fidgeting, pinching the fingertips of one hand with the mean digits of its twin, but she stops when he says that last word.

 

“What?”

 

“You are forbidden from entering the sanctuary of the harem for… two days. Two days you will stay in your room like a naughty child and think about what you’ve done. Then, on the third day, you will apologize to Serena. If you two choose to kiss and make up, be so kind to _please_ let me know first.”

 

Rey crinkles her nose, feeling equally parts appalled at having to speak to Serena ever again but also relieved at her two days of paid vacation, as it were.

 

Only when he leaves, the heavy door to her room closing and locking safely shut behind him, does Rey allow herself to fully give in. She flops backwards onto her bed, kicking her feet up and about as a bizarre wave of pure _giddiness_ sweeps over her. The last twenty-four hours must have done it. Too many emotions all at once, and now she’s finally lost her mind and can’t stop smiling.

 

That’s not so bad at all, is it?

 

Rey starts to draw herself a bath, a complete out of character notion of wanting to ‘prettify’ herself sweeping over her, when an odd sound outside her window brings her brief moment of happiness over too soon.

 

She knows what it is before she even opens the window and reaches around the broken grating. There’s a tiny piece of paper tucked there. Her summons to duty.

 

 _Midnight_.

 

One step forward, two steps back. And now an new certain but uncertain complication along the way. If only Rey could be allowed to date her husband in peace, but it seems like the universe has other demands for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made it. That’s what counts. Writer’s block is for real, yo.
> 
> Next chapter:  
> Rey and the Resistance go the rounds, and Kylo receives a dire ultimatum from his lady love.
> 
> And as always, find me on tumblr at lost-inthesunlight and twitter at @Ava_Avdal :)
> 
> Chapter 8's moodboard artwork: https://lost-inthesunlight.tumblr.com/post/182254447073/the-path-that-moonbeams-make-chapter-8-read-it


	9. Read My Lips, Dear Husband

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Rey doesn’t get a wink of sleep all night long.

“Next time, Rey, please tell us when you’re going to do something like that. You put us - _all_ of us- in more danger tonight than you know.”

 

Poe’s plea both rankles and confuses Rey, but it’s his imploring tone of voice that keeps her quiet.

 

She nods. No point in explaining again that her outburst down in the harem had been anything but unplanned. She wasn’t sure exactly of what sorts of ‘dangers’ it could bring to the Resistance, but Poe had told her that Alyss also had fallen under suspicion in the harem and couldn’t risk sneaking out here to meet her tonight with so many eyes watching her.

 

“She doesn’t have her own room, then?”

 

Poe had shaken his head. Apparently that amenity really was a rarity amongst the wives. It brought with it a great sense of gratitude that Kylo had done that for her, even if such a distinction had given its own hefty price tag along wit it. Having to share her living quarters with the harpies? Unbearable. Truly unbearable. Rey wouldn’t have last the first night, let alone these short few.

 

And now she was here, creeping through the shadows to speak to a visibly flustered Poe, her contact with the Resistance that she’s not sure she wants anything to do with.

 

“Rey,” he drops his voice though there’s no one else to hear him, “this is a rather sensitive question I’m about to ask you, and I’m very sorry for that. If Alyss were here- it would have been better being asked by another woman.”

 

Rey looks at Poe with a frown. He looks truly, terribly uncomfortable, though Rey could hardly imagine anything he could say to her that would have been more humiliating than Ayana’s ‘lesson’ that afternoon.

 

She sighs, dropping her shoulders which had begun to hunch from tension.

 

“Poe… it’s alright. Just speak what’s on your mind, you won’t offend me.”

 

Or he might well, but she’s a big girl. Poe urns a shade darker, clear even in the flickering candlelight. They were back in that same tower room where they had talked last time, and Rey makes a mental note to at some point come here herself and see what part of the palace lies below them.

 

“Rey… we need to know if you’ve been compromised.”

 

Comp…

 

Rey blinks. Frowns. Poe shuffles his weight from side to side.

 

“I don’t know what that means,” she says after a few moments of silence.

 

Poe clears his throat again. He starts to gesture in a strange way and Rey immediately flushes hot and cold as a notion dawns on her.

 

“You’re asking me if I’m still a virgin? Truly?! How would me yes or not be _any_ -”

 

Poe stops her with a frantic wave. 

 

“Not compromised like that! Not… _physically_. But emotionally.”

 

He steps closer and Rey glares up at him, crossing her arms over her chest. She’s wearing her black training costume, at least, otherwise such a gesture would probably look ridiculous on someone nearly naked.

 

Rey… we’re asking you if you’ve begun to develop sentiment towards the Prince. If you have, and that was the reason for your outburst then- then we truly are in danger and we may need to pull Alyss out. If she’ll go. She may not listen to reason.”

 

It’s baffling why Poe and the Resistance seems to think infiltrating- for lack of a better word- into the harem is a key part of their coup strategy. Or whatever they were planning on accomplishing. Did they not realize the sisters in the harem were foolish, pathetic, and all but useless even to themselves? Wastes of space, and many of them seemed to hold no favor with Kylo at all, except… except maybe a few did.

 

“Is this about that girl who died?” Rey asks. “Paige? You had said that K- that the Prince- had taken a shine to her. Someone killed her, didn’t they? Someone in the harem out of jealousy?”

 

Rey knows there must be more to it than that. The harem seemed plenty jealous of everything and everyone, so they must have had a greater reason. If Nevan had wanted Rey or Alyss dead, Rey doesn’t doubt an attempt would have been made already. No sense in going through the effort of these ‘lessons’ and the pretense of civility then.

 

“Rey,” Poe continues, “we believe there’s someone else in the Palace who has a greater agenda. It’s not just us of the Resistance, but a third party at least that has their eyes on the Alderaan crown. And… and I cannot tell you anymore. It isn’t safe for you to know even this much, and, to be brutally honest, we don’t trust you yet. Your uncle has put his faith in you, vouched for the strength of your spirit, but please, Rey, I need an answer: has your will to help us fight this fight been compromised?”

 

It was a low blow. She never asked for any of this. She had been placed into the game as a pawn unknowing, and every move she makes to extract herself only seems to draw her in deeper.

 

Still, she chooses her next words very carefully.

 

“The Prince is a very persuasive man, but no, I have not been swayed by him. That’s not why I attacked Serena. Ask Alyss, she can vouch for how I’ve been treated by her. I simply saw a chance to assert myself, show her I’m not one to be tread upon, and I took it. Afte rall I’m just a feral little garbage picker, that’s all I know.”

 

Poe places a heavy hand on her shoulder. It’s not exactly a hug, something far from it, but Rey guesses it’s meant to be a gesture of comfort. After having such a trying day, she’ll the kindness where she can find it.

 

“None of think that of you, Rey. And I know we don’t know each other well, but I believe your uncle was right about you. You have a good heart. You want what’s right for us, _all_ of us. A fair kingdom. A place of prosperity. Balance restored where it belongs to the people who need it most. The Resistance wants these same things, so let’s work together. No one, neither you or Alyss or the Prince or _anyone_ , needs to get hurt if it can be avoided.”

 

A peaceful takeover of the Alderaan throne? Impossible. A fool’s dream

 

But perhaps a dream still worth fighting for even if half of it were to come true. 

 

“What do you want me to do?” she quietly asks. “Is there something more you need from then?”

 

Poe nods. His hand drops and Rey’s shoulder slump along with it. There is something, then.

 

“You’re very good at breaking into spaces that don’t want to be entered. Rey, don’t look angry, your Uncle told us of your past. You did what you had to do to survive, another gift of the current ruling family, and now those very skills are what we need.”

 

Rey raises an eyebrow. 

 

“...meaning?”

 

“We… during the daytime tomorrow the Prince is going to be making a public appearance in the town. Giving a speech and appointing new officials. He will have his guards with him and most of the palace security will be focused outside. We need you to get into his private chambers and look for something for us.”

 

“During the daytime? That’s when I’m-” 

 

Reys voice trails off. Oh. _Right_. She was under house arrest. No harem for her tomorrow. Pity.

 

“Alyss will make a distraction,” Poe continues. “I will be on guard duty in the palace and I will help ensure that the passage to the Prince's bedroom is clear of observers. Then you will break inside, and find a letter for us.”

 

“A _letter_? Just a letter? All of this trouble for a piece of paper?”

 

Poe swallows. Nods. 

 

“A letter from his mother, the Empress. We tried to intercept it when it arrived from overseas, but we were unable to. If this letter says what we believe it does, then it could be instrumental in our efforts.”

 

Rey is sorely tempted to ask what they think it contains, but another part of her very much would rather not know.

 

“It sounds very dangerous, Poe. Wouldn't it be better I do this at night? I mean, now perhaps? I’m already here on the roof and all the guards are slack and half asleep. There’s a skylight to Kylo’s bedroom, shouldn’t I at least see if it’s one that can be opened?”

 

When her husband had invited her to co,e to him tonight, Rey had been racing her mind trying to find ways she could without being detected. The skylight she had seen before had seemed the best bet.

 

When a silence falls Rey looks over her shoulder at Poe. She had already been heading towards the door to make good on her plan, but the change in Poe’s expression tells her she’s just said something she shouldn't’ have.

 

“What?” she asks.

 

Poe presses his lips into a tight line as he holds her gaze.

 

“You called him ‘Kylo’. And you’ve been to his bedroom, before, I’ve heard that much.”

 

Oh for the _love of-_

 

Rey has to count to three. Rein her temper in. She’s gotten so little sleep these last few days that even off-hand comments like that are enough to make her hackles rise.

 

“I did and I have,” she says. “Are you about to ask me if I’ve been compromised again? Don’t. But that means that I know where he probably keeps his letters and that he sleeps deeply. So I’ll do it now, if you don’t mind.”

 

Poe looks long and hard at her, but eventually he nods.

 

“Be careful, Rey. I will be here on the roof watching over you for as long as I can, but I’ll need to get back to my guard duties soon so you’ll be largely on your own.”

 

What a mess. That’s the best way Rey can describe it.

 

She leaves without another word. Time to make her _second_ secret appointment of the night, what a popular girl she is now.

 

*

 

For all of Rey’s careful peering into the skylight and readying herself to make sure the coast was clear, she had neglected to remember the most obvious unseen culprit to her plan: Kylo’s personal guards.

 

She had been tackled mid-air before her feet had even touched the carpet of the bedroom floor.

 

The room was dark like before. Dark like everything her husband seemed to want to have around him. And now so too was the hulking beast of metal and mask that was pinned her stunned body to the floor.

 

He was holding her neck so tight she saw stars bloom in her eyes. Couldn’t so much as gasp let alone cry out in shock. They had made a suitably booming ‘whumpf’ sound when she’d been thrown down, though, and the next few seconds were punctuated by a ringing in Rey’s ears and the faint sounds of a startled Kylo fumbling, dropping, then retrieving his bedside candle.

 

A soft light fills the room, revealing the still prone Rey pinned to the floor with the masked from of the Black Guard looming above her. Rey’s vision starts to shimmer, growing blurry around the edges, then Kylo’s voice comes and the grip on her neck relaxes.

 

She flips over then, coughing and smacking her hand on the floor for good measure.

 

“Ky- ky-”

 

Gods, how close did she just come to passing out? A touch far softer than the last she’d experienced rubs her shoulder in circles.

 

“Sorry about that, my dear. I… if I had known that would be your route of surprising me, I would have warned my guards in advance. Are you alright?”

 

Rey glares at him. Somehow this has to be his fault. Everything wrong in her world is Kylo’s fault.

 

The guard stands tall, stance wide. She can’t see his eyes through the mesh frame of his helmet. It’s really quite a disturbing thing to witness.

 

“I suppose I should be impressed,” she mutters, rubbing her sore neck. “your guards are very attentive. Perhaps I should have knocked first?”

 

She rolls her shoulder out of Kylo’s grip and sits up, now giving the still lurking guard a sullen expression.

 

“Can you send him away?” she asks. “I don’t like how he’s looking at me.”

 

The eyeless stare of the massive figure was imposing to say the least. Kylo tsks softly, to Rey’s great annoyance, and rocks back on his heels to settle into a low crouch.

 

“You know something, Rey? This is the second time today that my men thought you’d held my life in danger. I’m starting to wonder if they aren’t onto something.”

 

Rey steadies her expression to give nothing away. Kylo’s tone is playful, the damnable man. He must just be riling her up which unfortunately seems to come far too easy for him.

 

“ _You_ invited me tonight, husband,” she reminds him. “Some welcome your men gave, and you as well. Haven’t even offered me a hand up off the carpet.”

 

Kylo’s smile turns crooked, but he takes the hint and stands up to offer her an extended hand.

 

“Perhaps I rather like seeing you down there, my dear. And I had expected you to use the door, not descend down through my ceiling window like a spider upon its prey.”

 

She frowns at him. The weight of the guards stare on the back of her head is intense. It makes her hair stand on end every bit as much as the complete silence from her attacker.

 

“Like you said, I’m full of surprises.”

 

She crosses her arms and waits. Kylo seems to contemplate her for a moment, his gaze lingering overly long to the parts of her figure where the black training outfit he’d given to her tended to cling.

 

“And then some,” he says.

 

With a wave of his hand he finally dismisses the guard. The room immediately seems bigger and less stifling without him inside. 

 

And then it’s just her alone with her husband once more. In his bedroom. In the middle of the night.

 

Rey scrambles to think of something to say to fill the silence before it can even start.

 

“I haven’t been sleeping well,” she warns, “I’m not going to be good company tonight.”

 

Kylo turns from her and moves over to the three large windows that point out to the citadel below. It’s at this point that Rey realizes he’s not wearing particularly much, just a pair of sleeping pants made out of some thin, black material that looks like silk. She hadn't noticed it what with being choked and all, but the sight of his well muscled back makes her throat oddly dry.

 

“Some wine, Rey? Does wonders for feelings of ill-temperament.” 

 

Two glasses are waiting on the windowsill, next to an already opened bottle. Rey hadn’t noticed any of those either.

 

She starts to refuse, trying to remember whatever benign polite phrase Nevan had taught her for just this occasion. Then Kylo turns to face her, a glass in each hand, and godsdamnit if his pajama pants don’t sit low on his hipbones to the point of distraction.

 

She sntaches her glass out of his hand and retreats back a few steps. Kylo raises an eyebrow.

 

“Cheers,” he says, toasting through the air to her.

 

The wine is sweet, dark, and heavy-bodied. Clearly of the best quality, better than even the sisters in the harem have flowing freely for the entertainment. And it must be quite strong too, because Rey immediately feels a soothing effect begin to steady her ragged nerves.

 

She finishes the glass and sets it down, then tries to fidget with the hem of her sleeves except her training outfit doesn’t have that distraction like her gowns do.

 

“You always seem so uncomfortable around me.”

 

Rey doesn’t deny it. She is and she does. She has dealt with all kinds of people in her short life, but never anyone even close to her changeable, bewildering husband. It’s almost frightening to think of how little she understands the way his mind must work.

 

“Would you like me to read to you?” Rey offers, changing the subject from whatever direction he was planning on taking that. “I can continue from where I left off last night, but you had fallen asleep so I don’t know how much you-”

 

“It’s fine, Rey” Kylo’s voice has a warmth to it that confuses her all the more. “Read anything you like, just so long as you come and sit with me for a while.”

 

His words were sweet. Kind. They made Rey feel valuable. As if her company was the prize that he had truly wanted, not just her simply reading to him for the sake of not having to do it himself.

 

The fact that the book she ad been reading had been particularly compelling made the gesture all the more significant.

 

“Alright,” she says quietly, “lay down and get comfortable. I start again with the next tale.”

 

Rey turns to the bookshelf on the wall. The bed creaks as Kylo settles down on it. Below her, on the table just under the books so close she could very well snatch whatever she wanted to from it in a flash, are the letters. She had seen them before, but which one was the right one?

 

The blue bound book waits for her, standing up and sticking out beyond the others. Kylo must have put it back himself, because any maid wouldn’t have done so sloppy a job.

 

“You were sure I would come tonight?” she asks over her shoulder.

 

Kylo has his back to her, and he’s sitting and reaching down. She can’t see what he’s doing, but she can hear his soft laugh.

 

“Hopeful, Rey. I had hoped, it came true. The power of positive thinking.”

 

Positive? Rey wouldn’t especially have thought her husband to be a positive person, but she’s only starting to see the multitude of sides to his personality.

 

Multitude of sides and multitude of letters as well. She’ll have to wait until he’s asleep to find the right one, no sense giving the game away to soon.

 

For now though, she takes the book and turns back to him to complete her task.

 

Only to gasp and drop it in her shock.

 

“What happened to your clothes? Why did you take them off?!”

 

Her husband is very accurately bare-assed naked. He’s facing away from her at least, but the candlelight outlines the pale globes of his backside with a rosy hue.

 

He looks back at her then. And he _winks_.

 

“You told me to get comfortable, darling. I like to sleep in the altogether, as you well know by now.”

 

He turns to face her then and Rey immediately drops her head. Shields her eyes on that side of her face as she sinks to the floor and fumbles as she picks the book back up.

 

“Put your pants back on.”

 

“No.”

 

She almost looks. Almost glares. He knows what he’s doing, he has to. This isn’t a fight he plans on losing.

 

“Kylo-”

 

“Rey, come here. You’re being ridiculous. We’re married. I’m not about to ravish you. Unless you ask me to, in which case simply say the word. Until then read to me so I can sleep and I promise to keep on my best behavior.”

 

She wants to run. She wants to peek. She doesn’t know what she wants, not at all.

 

“If this is your best behavior, I couldn’t hardly imagine you at your worst.”

 

His soft laugh again. Rey looks up at the skylight, her flattened palm still shielding her eyes from _his_ side of the room. She waits until she hears the bed shift again and the soft sound of sheets being drawn over skin.

 

“Are you decent?” she asks.

 

“As I’ll ever be.”

 

Her fingers part. Just a little. Her eyes slide. His lower half is safely hidden out of sight under the black silk sheets. The upper- well, he’s laying down but propping himself up on his elbows. The position makes the muscles of his arms tense and his stomach flex.

 

“Happy now?” he asks.

 

Gods, is this what marriage was like? This constant battle of control for one at the expense of the other?

 

“Let’s bloody well get this over with.”

 

She trudges over to the bed. Reaches across and snaps her fingers, pointing at the candle-holder to his side. Kylo’s smile grows, and he hands the light to her so she can see her book better and his barely clothed body much less.

 

“Chapter Two.”

 

She punctuates each syllable carefully, being very meticulous to annunciate each one and feeling very prim and improper. There was a naked man laying next to her, and Rey resolves to ignore him forever and ever.

 

She starts to re-read the chapter. It was a good one well worthy of a second go. The story was preposterous but fun. A sort of comedy of errors romance about a princess from some made-up kingdom who was restless and ran away from home. She ended up falling in love with the guard sent to bring her back. The story ends with the two of them literally sailing off into the sunset together, never to be seen again.

 

Rey closes the book when she gets to the final line. The ending is not one that sits well with her. Kylo had been laying there quietly, listening without a word of disturbance as she told the tale, but he clears his throat when Rey falls silent, the book clasped loosely in her lap.

 

“That was lovely,” he says.

 

“Insipid. I think that was the word you were looking for.”

 

It had been such a nice story, until the end. Rey hadn’t gotten that far on the first time.

 

“Rey?”

 

The bed behind her shifts, Kylo’s weight moving closer. His hand lightly sweeps some of the hair away from her face and tucks it behind her ear. She’d been using it as a veil to hide from him.

 

“That was the dream, wasn’t it? To run away like that? I couldn’t count high enough to tell you how many times I’ve wanted to simply vanish and leave the whole world behind.”

 

Why in the gods would he say that to her? Such a spoiled brat. Her husband truly knows nothing about anything, least of all the suffering that happens right under his nose in his own kingdom. The Resistance, for all of Rey’s great mistrust in them, was not wrong on all things.

 

Kylo sighs, his breath tickling Rey’s exposed ear. His hand drifts down to her shoulder, his thumb finding and rubbing along a tight knot of tension there.

 

“Another story, then? If this one didn’t appeal to your sense of adventure?”

 

His tough seems to burn her through her clothes, his palm almost unacceptably warm.

 

“I wanted that too,” she finally says. “To run away and start all over again. But I never could. Never had the luxury to even truly consider it.”

 

The hand presses harder, rocking Rey’s upper body back and forth as he tries to work out the stress from her back. 

 

“Why not? Why didn’t you? You had nothing and no one. Alone until your _uncle_ miraculously swept in and rescued you from that life.”

 

A tightness fills Rey’s chest. His words bordered on cruel, though she doubts he has any idea of that. Just saying what he wants to say and being so thoughtless to the feelings of others.

 

“Hope,” she says. “Hope is what kept me where I was. There were things that I clinged to even if I knew I shouldn’t have. That, and a fear of ending up even more worse off that I had been before.”

 

Kylo leans closer. Rey can see him now, watching her, but she refuses to look at him. His hand shifts from the back of her neck to the shoulder away from him and Rey absolutely can’t help herself. Can’t stop the flush of embarrassment that came from realizing she was being nearly embraced by a completely naked man.

 

“Not all of us benefited from your privilege, Your Highness.”

 

The air between them cools immediately, matching the temperature of her tone. The hand drops away and Kylo flops back, the bed bouncing under her with his abrupt weight.

 

“One more story then, _wife_. Try the third one. I haven’t read it in so long I forget how it goes.”

 

Rey huffs softly, swallowing the unhappy sound under her breath as she shakes her head.

 

“Another story? I’ll hardly get any sleep at all tonight!”

 

The hand returns, tracing along the center seam of Rey’s training outfit. It makes her back arch away, goosebumps thankfully hidden breaking out along her arms.

 

“This would not be the first time such words have been said in my bedroom, darling. Now, please. One more.”

 

Rey looks down at the book. Blue. Faded. No title on either the front or the spine.

 

“You said ‘please’.”

 

The hand pinches the looser part of the fabric around her waist, attempting to draw her backwards.

 

“I did,” he admits.

 

Another sigh leaves her lips. She looks back at him. There’s a little smile on his face, the expression of a man who believes he’s about to get what he wants. Her gaze flickers down and the sheet protecting his modestly as drifted lower almost to the point of obscenity.

 

“Tale Three.” Her voice is higher pitched, how annoying. “The Faraway Land.”

 

Kylo moves closer again, resting his head on his elbow. Rey ignores him resolutely, drawing all her focus onto the words on the paper.

 

An adventure story. The last had been a romance, and a very sweet one until the last page. This was different, thankfully. It was a story of an unlikely group of friends thrown together by destiny. They were on some sort of a quest. Some sort of complication between them. It was probably a very good story, but Kylo had just reached out and wrapped his palm over her wrist.

 

She looks down at herself, whatever sentence she’d been trying to form dissipating at the harmless contact.

 

“Continue.”

 

The hand splays out, flattening itself over the top of her own.

 

She stumbles over the next paragraph, each word becoming a little harder as a strange feeling behinds to form in her chest. A pinch. An ache. Emotion. She doesn’t like it.

 

“Kylo, please...”

 

She doesn’t know what she’s asking him to do. Or not do. This was a mistake. She shouldn’t have come here tonight.

 

Kylo lets go of her hand then to reach out and turn the largely forgotten about page for her. He hums. She looks down at the book. The feeling in her chest twists, tightening all the more.

 

And then he embraces her fully, wrapping his arms around her from behind and resting his chin on her shoulder.

 

A full shudder runs along her back. She knows he must be able to feel every tremble. His breath fans along the side of her face, and it makes something else lower in her stomach tense.

 

“Rey? There is a great deal of value to being touched. I think it’s something very important, and you’ve been terribly deprived, haven’t you?”

 

His weight is heavy. Solid. Alive. Rey has to close her eyes as they start to sting.

 

And that awful, wrenching feeling in her chest only grows the longer he holds her. No words are spoken, though Rey tries and fails to read out the next line of the story.

 

He lightly shushes her then, and she screws her eyes shut.

 

She can hear him breathing. Even feel his heartbeat against her back. Her uncle- Poe- no one- no one has ever-

 

But who else? Which one of them? Which one of the harpies?

 

“ _You will stay faithful to me.”_

 

She grits the words out so hard and forcefully that they hurt. Nearly howls them. They feel like sand in her throat. She’s choking on them.

 

“What?”

 

Kylo’s surprised sounding voice is sanctum-quiet. He dares ask that, as if he hadn’t heard her right.

 

The pain in her chest fractures through her all at once, detonating so fast just like when she’d lost her last thread with Serena.

 

Rey shoves backwards _hard_ , the book in her lap dropping to the side. She almost throws Kylo off her, and then she’s on him herself. She pins him to the bed, kneeling to the side of him but with her hands bearing down on the broad spanse of his chest. She wants to throttle him. Shake him until he _gets it_.

 

“You _will_ stay faithful to me.”

 

She glares down at him, daring him to defy her on this. His surprised face is blurry around the edge of her vision.

 

“Rey-”

 

“Which one of them? Where? How did you do it? What parts of them? When? _When_? Today? Yesterday? Tell me _when_.”

 

Her hands wrap across the tops of his shoulders and she tries to do just what she’d pictured: shakes the truth out of him. Except that had seemed far more effective in her mind, whereas in real life he’s as heavy a weight as she’s ever tried to lift.

 

“When _what_ , Rey? What’s wrong?”

 

His hand reaches out to smooth a tear off her cheek. Rey slaps it away, her control faltering by another notch. 

 

He’s an idiot. A letch. The worst person she’s ever met.

 

“When did you bed them?” she demands. “Since our wedding night, when did you lay with one of them? Which one, where, when. Tell me this. Tell me _everything_.”

 

If he dares not to- Rey doesn’t know. She just doesn’t know.

 

Kylo looks up at her, his expression unreadable. Half of Rey desperately wants to look away and break this moment of contact, but the other half needs to see this. Needs to see the lie in his eyes. Then she’ll know. Then she’ll be free.

 

“I haven’t, Rey.” His voice is grave. Angry. “I haven’t _laid_ with another woman since the week before our wedding.”

 

Her lips curl into a snarl, grip on his shoulders tightening.

 

“You lie.”

 

“I don’t.”

 

No. _No_.

 

“You. Are. Lying.”

 

His hands wrap around her wrists, pulling them off him. She can see the indents from her nails around his collarbone.

 

“Rey, it’s a rather curious thing why you are so insistent about this.” His words are clipped, controlled. “And I speak the truth. You have come into my life at a very difficult time. I have not been the same person I normally am. But I am not lying.”

 

She swallows. Tries to recoil and this time it’s Kylo who holds her over him.

 

“And- and since then? Since our wedding?”

 

He shakes his head. This is not the face of a man at all amused by this conversation.

 

“No, Rey. Perhaps that is why your sisters have been so unwelcoming of you. As I have said, this has not been an easy time in my life.”

 

Rey frowns. Kylo frowns right back.

 

“Why?” she asks. “What’s happened?”

 

Kylo pushes up then, drawing himself closer and not letting her pull away.

 

“What is it that you want, Rey? You don’t know, do you?”

 

He’s very good at flipping the tables against her. Too good.

 

And he’s also very, very naked. That alone is enough to fluster Rey and bring her temper back under control.

 

Still, she squares her jaw. Sucks in a shaky breath and forces herself to speak.

 

“I- I want you to be faithful to me and me alone. One month, Kylo. That’s what I want from you. You will not- _not_ -”

 

She doesn’t know how to finish that. She doesn’t want him to touch them. Look at them. Go near them. Even think about them or anyone but her and her alone.

 

Get rid of them. All of them.

 

The words go unsaid because they must. Kylo frowns deeper, lines etching themselves into his too-close forehead.

 

“That’s a very presumptuous demand, _wife_ , to change the terms of our agreement now after so many days. Now when you’re in my bed with me.”

 

She blinks. His gaze doesn’t waver.

 

“Don’t… don’t try and overpower my, Kylo. You’re doing that thing you do. Where you try to make me retreat so you can get your way. Not this time. You promise me this or let me take the easy way out.”

 

His gaze darkens. Immediately, irrepressibly, her cheeks heat up. Suddenly she’s not sure exactly what sort of a moment they’re having. Up until this second it had been a rather angry one.

 

“Kylo… do not lay with them. Do not kiss them. Is it too much for me to ask for you not to speak or look at them?”

 

he huffs. She can still smell the wine faintly on his breath.

 

“Yes, wife, that is too much.”

 

He tries to draw her onto his lap and she squirms until he lets her go. Immediately she retreats to the edge of the bed, mind reeling on the unsure footing of all that’s happened.

 

“The rest then. Promise me. Swear to me.”

 

He picks up her hand. Jerkily draws it toward him even as she fights him for that.

 

Then he kisses the inside of her wrist and her mouth goes dry.

 

“One month, Rey? You’re trying to kill me. I think I might die with only my own touch to get me through. Or yours. I truly might perish if I agree to this.”

 

Rey snorts. A proper lady like Nevan had tried to fashion her into might have sniffed. Delicately. But Rey snorts and she doesn’t mind herself for it.

 

“Then I’ll be a widow. Good thing so much of the wardrobe you’ve given me is black.”

 

He smiles then, nuzzling his face into her palm.

 

“I’ll be climbing the walls, Rey, by the end of my sentence. Or perhaps-” he starts to nibble on the tips of her fingers and Rey gives in and looks away from the heated glare he sends up to her -”or perhaps by the end of the month I’ll be climbing _you_. Such a burden of your innocence you’re taking upon yourself.”

 

Rey squirms again, feeling flustered from the top of her head to the tip of her toes. She presses her lips together, cheeks burning like never before as her husband starts to kiss her palm again, mouthing words against it that she suspects might be rather raunchy.

 

“Is that a threat?” she finally asks.

 

He pulls away then, flopping backwards against the bed now in a full sprawl of nudity. His eyes bore into hers, wordlessly daring her to go ahead, take a peek.

 

“Not in so many words, wife. Though I believe you may begin to find me _very_ persuasive the longer we are wedded. Now, kindly my darling, read on. We hadn’t gotten too far into this last chapter before you had fallen distracted.”

 

Rey looks at the forgotten book laying next to her because she can’t bloody well risk looking anywhere else. She turns her back to him, sitting far enough away that she hopes she’s beyond arms reach, and continues roughly where she had left off.

 

*

 

“And their time in the Kingdom changed them forever. Each one of them took the memories of those days with them throughout the rest of their years. THE END.”

 

Rey closes the book and exhales. The faintest hint of dawn, just the slightest bit of black turning to violet, has begun to sweep across the sky.

 

“That was a good story,” she says softly. “I liked this one. They were all happy. They did the right thing, even if it cost them. Sacrifices. Friendship. Fighting for what’s right. There was a lot to this one.”

 

No answer from Kylo. When Rey looks back, her first glance since restarting the story, her husband is fast asleep. Fast asleep and very naked and exposed.

 

Okay, so… well she looks. She’s not sure exactly what to make of his unclad form, though parts of her almost beg for her to start imagining.

 

No time for that. Never time for that. Rey had a purpose here and it has nothing to do with reading her husband sweet bedtime stories and pondering the geometry of his physique. 

 

She lifts herself out of bed with all the grace of her former life. Silent. Unnoticed. The book is in her hands, and it gives her the excuse to cross the room to her husband’s desk. She looks behind her and he’s sleeping so trusting, bringing a deep pang of guilt that slows her movements.

 

The Resistance wasn’t wrong about her husband. But Kylo… she truly doesn’t believe he’s a bad person. Selfish and blind, certainly, but in his soul is someone worth fighting for.

 

No harm in looking, though. 

 

Her fingers sift through his letters quickly, wanting the dirty deed over and done with. Almost all meant nothing to her. Correspondence from various officials, many with addresses written in a script she couldn’t read. 

 

Surely Kylo’s own mother would write to him in a more familiar way, right?

 

She sets the book down and sorts double-handed, unclear on what she’s looking for. The elegant penmanship of an Empress, perhaps. 

 

Or a royal seal from Her Majesty of Alderaan.

 

Rey holds the letter in both hands and swallows. The envelope is opened, the wax seal sliced neatly through at an angle. Inside is a heavy set of precisely folded papers, and Rey swallows deeply as she starts to extract them.

 

She looks back over her shoulder. The bed is empty and her gasp is cut short as her husband’s hand circles around her wrist.

 

“Rey.”

 

The letter drops from her hand. She can’t see his face with the light behind him, but she knows he can see hers.

 

I’m sorry.

 

She can’t say it. Can only look up, pleading. Let him misunderstand. Let him thank she was just being nosy. She didn’t know what she was doing. She was just prying where she hadn’t been invited.

 

He reaches out with his free hand, his grip on her never wavering. The letter is picked up and he stares at it longer than at her.

 

“Go.”

 

She sucks in a breath. Tries to explain. Tries to _lie_.

 

Kylo stops her before she can even start.

 

“You’re such a clever, clever girl, my dear sweet Rey. Go out my bedroom door. I don’t doubt you’ll find you way back to your room safely.”

 

And he turns her, spinning her by her shoulders. With a push he shoves her and her feet race to catch up with her momentum before she trips.

 

In a flash she’s gone, all but running down the halls of the palace away from her husband’s bedroom. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you forgive me for switching to much shorter chapters but more frequent? Like, for instance, this chapter would be two: one with the conversation with Poe and then the Kylo sequence? Or would you prefer longer, more rounded chapters like this one less often? I aim to please, so do let me know! :)
> 
> And as always, find me on tumblr at lost-inthesunlight and twitter at @Ava_Avdal :)
> 
> This chapter's mood board is one I'm especially proud of and you can find it at:
> 
> https://66.media.tumblr.com/2f27c35e84748112b3caab0d4e680cda/tumblr_pmkowbLTTb1w09uodo1_540.jpg


	10. Worth a Thousand Words

Rey felt sick with disgust at herself.

 

She stumbled out of Kylo’s bedroom with tears in her eyes and an unsteady gait. Those guards, those _things_ of his, stood by either side of the door. Emotionless. Silent. Forbidding. Whatever they thought of her distraught departure was so hidden from view they might as well not be alive.

 

Surely she wasn’t the first woman to leave her husband’s bedroom in such a state?

 

The Sister Wives will consume her for this. If even one of them heard about her leaving his room tonight at all, no less after she had attacked Serena, than Rey can scarcely begin to think about the hell she will have to pay from their wicked tongues when she’s forced to return to the harem.

 

The window and the rooftops. That’s the only way. Rey takes the first opportunity out that presents itself as soon as she rounds a corner out of sight of the guards. It’s a narrow opening, one that she has to squeeze through sideways, and she kicks it closed behind her before she scales the palace walls to the roof.

 

Kylo had thrown her out near to dawn. That was rather cruel of him. The workers of the palace were already starting to stir, and the sleepy guards were chatting up on the roof and sipping steaming cups of caf.

 

Rey was better than them, though. She had sneaked about tighter spots than this and she sticks to the retreating shadows with a greater degree of stealth then her fractured emotions should have allowed.

 

When she gets to her room she closes the window, draws the shades, and makes sure the door is locked tight. Then emotion finally starts to get the better of her and she slumps on the bed, burying her face amongst the expensive and well stuffed pillows.

 

_ Kylo… _

 

He had looked at her with such disappointment. Such disgust. He had looked at her like she was a stranger.

 

They were though, weren’t they? A husband and wife thrown together by the world without knowing the first thing about what was truly inside each other’s souls.

 

He was nothing to her. He should have meant nothing. She didn’t know him and had no reason to want him.

 

So why did she feel so wretched? Would he even speak to her now? Did she even want him to?

 

Yes. She did. But also no.

 

Rey isn't’ sure she could handle a rebuke from him. If she was lucky he would punish her with indifference. If she wasn’t…

 

Her room is beautiful in this morning light. That’s something nicer to think about. Focus on how the colors of the dawn pick up the regal purple shades of the wall coloring and makes the golden threads of the window curtains almost glow. Magical. Rey tries not to have any opinion about it, about this place she had been put in by others.

 

Outside her room is the soft sound of footsteps. The come then go, passing by her door without pause. Rey can’t help but feel a twinge of pain at that. Foolish to think- to _hope_ \- that her husband would have come to her already so soon.

 

Rey spends the rest of the morning pacing. Too tired to sleep, to weary to rest. Outside the walls the world grows lighter. Busier. No one comes for her though. Her breakfast is brought to her with a knock and placed on a little table outside her door when she opens to it. Not even the servants aren’t shunning her for her transgression in the harem.

 

And no husband. His silence is the iciest of all and he’s not even in the same room to deliver it to her himself.

 

It’s not until noon comes and goes that a whistle from the hallway tells her its time to do the Resistance’s bidding and finish her task.

 

*

 

Poe had told her to look contrite.

 

Kylo was off in town doing his grand princely speech or something to that effect. Apparently a few of the wives, the higher ranking ones in that foul hierarchy of his, had accompanied him to be ornaments on the sidelines. The rest were in the harem, a place Rey was still grounded from.

 

“The servants will talk,” Poe tells her in a voice quiet enough that only she can hear, “they always talk. But if they see you looking very grim and being escorted by a guard, they will think it’s all part of your punishment. Assume that the Prince has demanded you be brought somewhere to await a further instruction.”

 

The halls were largely silent. Nearly all the staff were engaged with other tasks or out on the town enjoying a rare day off with the prince away. Poe was leading her in a very indirect way towards the royal suite of the palace in case any prying eyes should be watching.

 

“Further instructions?” Rey whispers. “What in the hells does that mean?”

 

Poe shrugs subtly and prompts her to walk a little bit faster.

 

“I could only imagine, Rey. That would be between you and the harem.”

 

Between her and Nevan, Rey assumes. She may despise Serena but Nevan was a different story. The woman was clearly the head of harem and, despite her icy and sometimes disdainful demeanor to Rey, she was one person who clearly should not be crossed. No doubt she will have something very severe to say for the altercation with her sister.

 

“Let’s just get this over with,” she mutters under her breath.

 

There was only one good thing that had come to Rey in these last few days and that was how surprisingly easy it was to reach her husband’s private chambers during broad daylight. Suspiciously easy, perhaps. Kylo’s personal guards weren’t even waiting at his door, leaving she and Poe to stride right up to it.

 

Rey shouldn’t have been surprised by that, but she still was. The palace had gone quiet. Everyone who was anyone who wasn’t on symbolic house arrest was out in the city today to attend the Prince’s speech and whatever political driven ceremony was underway.

 

It made sense that her husband’s personal guards would follow him wherever he went. Still though… it seemed strange. She and Poe had passed just one other patrol, and this was of the lower ranking hallway guards that apparently Poe greatly outranked. He had simply nodded his head at them, they had nodded back, and Rey had been swept on her way to her mission.

 

“Can you get in?” he asks, his voice muffled by the mask. “I will be in the main hallway, but if there’s a problem I won’t be able to help you beyond a quiet warning. You’ll have to have your ears and eyes out for it.”

 

It’s Rey’s turn to nod, and she waits until Poe gives her shoulder a reassuring squeeze and leaves. Once he’s rounded the corner and out of sight, she draws out the set of lockpicks he had given her from her robe’s pockets. It was important that she look as normal as possible, so regrettably she couldn’t wear her far more practical training outfit. Her most conservative gown, such as the flimsy, transparent garment was, and a brocaded robe would have to do. She looked like a Wife. Hopefully that status would explain her being in her husband’s bedroom alone if she were to be caught.

 

She slips the first lockpick in place and turns. Nothing. No resistance at all.

 

With that Rey’s breath stiffens. It couldn’t- no. No no _._

 

She pockets the lockpicks again, slipping them into the hidden fold at the edge of her robe’s sleeve that no doubt other wife’s used for far more scandalous purposes. Then Rey swallows, holds her breath, and turns the doorknob.

 

It opens. It wasn’t locked.

 

Something about that almost hurts her, almost causes her physical pain from the sharp feeling that stabs through her chest. The door wasn’t locked and it wasn’t guarded. He knew she would come here when he was away.

 

Rey opens the door a crack, waiting and hoping perhaps for something to happen to force her to run away. Nothing again. The room is darkened with the curtains drawn but still enough of the late morning sunlight spilling out to clearly show how empty it is.

 

No trap waiting to be sprung because it’s already sprung.

 

“Gods.”

 

Rey whispers it so quietly, but it still sounds vulgar and loud in the hushed space. She closes the door behind her nearly all the way, just before the point that the lock of it would clink shut.

 

And then she’s alone. Left free and unfettered to do her traitorous task.

 

Find the letter from her husband’s mother to her only son. That’s her goal. And Rey has already resolved that she’s going to bloody well _read_ the letter, too, so that she can decide on her own whether to share it with the Resistance for their machinations or not.

 

There’s not a sense of urgency. Part of her perhaps wants to be found so it would take the choice out of her hands. Rey spins in a slow circle, taking in the room as it has been left to her.

 

Kylo has tidied up. When she’d been here last night, just those few hours ago, the room had been messy but lived in. Books and personal effects scattered about. Now he’s put them all back where they belong, making his room look picture-perfect for her.

 

Everything has its place, except for the blue book waiting on the bed, set down right where she had been sitting to read it to him.

 

Rey’s shoulders slump, the air being knocked out of her at this confirmation of what she had suspected. She doesn’t go to it first, though, not wanting to have to face the truth of it.

 

This is her chance. Tidied and prepared or not,t his is still her husband’s room. The place she assumes is closest to his heart, if he should have one.

 

His vanity. Her husband has a _vanity_. That brings a soft smile to Rey’s lips, her amusement pricking at the sheer number of potions and creams that are placed on the table. He had more than she did- not that Rey was clear on how to use half of those in her own room- but the thought of her dark and bold spouse _primping_ himself in front of the mirror every morning came as a much needed break from all the doom and gloom of the last few hours. Days.

 

Next she goes to his wardrobe. Black black black, some silks, some linens, many tougher materials. They revealed the clothes of a man of some style, surprising practicality, and expected repetition.

 

_He dresses like he’s going to a funeral_ , Rey muses. 

 

There’s but a few clothes in other shades than his favorite, and Rey sighs when she comes to the white and gold ornate waistcoat he’d been wearing on their wedding day. She had hardly paid a thought to the garment then as her fate was being sealed for her, but now there’s something-

 

No, there’s not. It’s nothing.

 

Rey closes the wardrobe and crosses the room to the far side with his desks and bookshelf. His personal space was no bigger than her own, really, though she supposes he really has all of the royal family’s suites at his disposal since he’s the only one living here in this wing at the moment.

 

She’d seen his books before, but hadn’t really had much of a chance to look at them in detail. Romances. Adventures. Children’s stories? Yes, a few of those, and they looked old enough to date back to when her husband was a boy himself. He must have kept them for sentimentality. 

 

That was one place where the two of them differed,. Rey had kept almost nothing of her old scavenger life when her ‘uncle’ had come into the picture. There were a few pieces she’d locked away safe either in her old shack or Luke’s humble home, but none of them had come with her to the palace. Too much of a reminder of both what she used to be and also was still missing out on.

 

And his letters were organized too. Laid out by address and date. They hadn’t been like that last night either. It must have taken him some time to sort them all, and Rey wonders what he could have been so bothered to hide from her given that he obviously expected her today to find these.

 

Nothing from his mother. The letter she  had found  earlier  was gone. Nothing from his  _ other Wives _ , either, and that would have stung deep if there were. Most of the correspondence seemed of various official duties. Invitations or matters of ceremony. Dull things, though Rey still pocketed a few pieces from higher ups in the military. The  General she had met earlier. Rey  briefly skims it and it discusses upcoming scheduling for some of the frontier outposts. Would that be useful to the  Resistance ? Perhaps not, but at least she wouldn’t have to  return to them  completely empty handed.

 

Finally, that just leaves the book.

 

Rey had been procrastinating, dreading that last part. It was a book, ink and pages, but also so much more than that. A symbol of the very few and very rare moments she;d had when it was just her husband and her alone. So different when they were alone. She like that Kylo best, perhaps didn’t like the Prince at all.

 

And in the book is a piece of paper folded crisply and tucked right at the chapter she had been reading to him last night.

 

A letter. No, not _t_ _he_ letter she’d been sent to look for, but a different one.

 

If it’s from Kylo to her- she’s not sure she could bear it. Whatever he had to say would unlikely be words of kindness.

 

It’s her  _ Uncle’s _ hand that greets her. She’d know it anywhere, he taught her how to write didn’t he?

 

_ Ben, _

 

Rey pauses on the stranger’s name to flip the letter over. There’s no envelope, but this was clearly placed here for her to see.

 

She continues with a frown, suddenly doubting why she even came to Kylo’s room to begin with.

 

_ Ben, _

 

_ So many things have happened over these years. You may not believe that you can change the past, but that’s exactly what I’m offering you. A second chance. What’s done can be undone. What’s written can be unwritten. _

_ Accept Rey as your wife. Accept her as my apology to you for letting so much happen that could have been avoided. Accept her and let my debt to you be settled. You will never find another like her in all the lands, Ben. You told me once you don’t believe in fate. Let her change your mind. _

 

_ -Luke _

 

Rey reads the paper again. And then again and again. Who…

 

Is her husband Ben then? Or was she to be promised to someone else and then the Crown Prince of Alderaan had made ‘Uncle Luke’ a better offer?

 

Kylo had wanted her to see this. To see that she had been bartered like a piece of chattel. To see that she was wrong. She was alone. Betrayed. Her husband and her uncle both. They were complicit. And he wanted her to know it as his punishment to her.

 

Rey stands stiffly. Shakily. Tears would come later. And they would, certainly but not now. 

 

Now… now Rey needs to leave. Leave this treacherous place that’s brought her nothing but pain and to never come back.

 

*

 

Rey had walked right out of the palace.

 

That was how she left. She had help, though, or maybe it would have gone differently. Otherwise she might have had to wait until night and Rey wasn’t sure if she could stand it for so long.

 

She handed the letter from the General to Poe and told him she wanted to leave. Told him that eh would help her. Poe had, predictably, tried to change her mind.

 

Rey didn’t tell him why she was leaving. She didn’t tell that she didn’t know if she was coming back or not. She couldn’t have if he’d pressed her because her mind was a mess and she could hardly see up or down or anyway but out.

 

No, he was going to help her,  _ or else. _

 

Poe had lead her out then. Perhaps her use to the Resistance had reached it’s conclusion given her failure at the mission, or perhaps he was more sympathetic to her clearly failing emotions than she had given him credit for.

 

“Follow the edges of the garden,” he tells her when the circuitous route through the palace brings them to an outside door. “Keep going and going, and you’ll find a gate. It should be open now as the servants bring in deliveries from their trip to the town, but if it’s closed you’ll have to find another way.”

 

Rey nods. Another way? There is no other way. She has nothing with her. Just the book and the letter and the lockpicks. She hadn’t gone back to her room. No money, literally just those three things and the clothes on her back.

 

Maybe it’s better this way. Maybe this will make her choices easier.

 

It didn’t. Still she hesitates even though the longer she waits here with a palace guard by her side, the more suspicious her departure could become.

 

“Tonight,” she says, fumbling to find the words. “Tonight, if I can… if I _choose_ to-”

 

“I’ll try to get stationed for guard duty on the roof,” Poe promises. “That’s all I can offer. You step out now and you’ll truly be on your own.”

 

He must have meant it as a warning and Rey nods despite barely hearing him. She’s always been on her own, hasn’t she? She was just a fool to ever think otherwise.

 

*

 

It was a strange feeling to be ‘regular’ again.

 

Poe’s advice on how to leave the palace had been clear and true. No one had stopped her when she left through the servant’s entrance, though more than one sets of eyes had widened at her as she passed. The guards at the gate, low in station based on their uniform, had gone so far as to hold it open for her and ask if she would like them to call forth a carriage so she wouldn’t be late to see her husband’s speech.

 

Rey had accepted with reluctance, if only for the sake of keeping up appearances for the longest moment. It would be even more unseemly- and take far longer- for her to walk all the way down the hillside into the city. Dressed so fine. All by herself. Clearly one of the wives.

 

No. It wouldn’t do. She would probably be stopped, wouldn’t she? The carriage was the better idea, and she allows it to take her all the way to the city square, though she gets off at the very edges of the festivities where she was least likely to be seen.

 

And there he is, her husband. Standing up on a podium and speaking to a man she doesn’t recognize. A crier is next to them, shouting the speech out into the crowd so that all gathered could hear. A treaty had been made, so it seems. A new route of trade and a new overseer appointed for the role.

 

Rey pays little attention to the details, watching instead the unspoken story that unfolds. Her husband is dressed so fine. Regally, truly, but he looks tired. Miserable,even, though perhaps that’s just her vanity speaking.

 

Next to him are his personal guards as well as a small army of other levels of security. Some are dressed the same as Poe was, though she knows herself that he’s back at the palace up to no good. Then there’s the redheaded general. He stands nearly as tall as her husband but with a stiffer and dubiously more regal stance. His face is a portrait of hard lines and unemotive severity and Rey catches him just once glancing away from Kylo to look behind him.

 

Nevan. She’s there too, far off to the side but the only one of the wives that has the distinction of being on the podium at all. And she’s tall and slim and perfect, looking for all the world like she belongs right where she is.

 

Rey turns then, pushing her way through the crowd. This wasn’t why she was here. She didn’t go to such lengths to leave the palace just to torture herself about her own shortcomings. Luke. She must speak to him. _W_ _ill_ speak to him, whether he wants it or not.

 

It’s easy to get lost in the crowd. No one is looking for her. No one probably knows her name. Here she’s just a finely dressed nobody, one of the many others watching from the outside in.

 

Still, when Rey leaves, she takes the longest route. No sense courting trouble when she doesn’t have to. 

 

*

 

Rey had been ready to wring her uncle’s neck the moment she saw him.

 

Pity, or lucky perhaps because dead men tell no tales, but he wasn’t there. It had been over an hour since she’d left the square, and Rey had dragged her feet nearly every step of the way.

 

She didn’t want to speak to Luke. She didn’t want to hear what he had to say. Every one of her questions, demands, began with the word ‘why’. 

 

And what if he didn’t answer? What then?

 

Would she even have a home to come back to now, after today was done?

 

Those were the questions that kept her ambling, walking far slower than she normally would. And seeing the door to Luke’s home opened had sudden confirmed all the worst suspicions she’d never even let herself think until that point. He was gone.

 

The door wasn’t just opened, it had been bashed open. The door was half off it’s hinges. Broken wood and a scattered furniture that could be seen from the outside in. Broken glass, too. 

 

A metal pry tool lay on the ground. No doubt it was what had been used on the door, and Rey picks it up as her only form of defense. The house should be empty. Impossible to say how long ago this had happened, but whoever had done this had surely come and gone and the looters shortly afterward.

 

Everything of value was gone. No signs of a struggle. Not in the front room or the bedroom or the small little storage room that so recently Rey had used as her own private space.

 

The house must have been abandoned for the last few days, and there were no answers left to be found.

 

And no Uncle Luke. He was gone without a trace and now Rey had left the palace for nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in getting this short chapter up, but I struggled with it. This was a really turning point in the storyline. We’re going to be taking a break from the Palace drama and some major changes are about to sweep through Rey’s life. And of course Kylo’s going to be at the head of that chaotic wave that comes crashing down.
> 
> And, as always, find me on tumblr at [ **lost-inthesunlight.tumblr.com**](https://lost-inthesunlight.tumblr.com/) and on twitter at [ **@Ava_Avdal**](https://twitter.com/Ava_Avdal) :)
> 
> Find this week's moodboard [ **HERE**](https://lost-inthesunlight.tumblr.com/post/183102796368/the-path-that-moonbeams-make-chapter-10-read-it)


	11. Well we're talking, now what?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Rey and Mr. Rey hash it out. And by that I mean argue and angry flirt and go two steps forward two steps back and around the bend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posted at nearly midnight after a long day spent squinting at photoshop. Mistakes are no doubt made, please forgive them.

Rey didn’t even put half her heart into cleaning up Uncle Luke’s home.

 

There was no point, was there? He was gone and she was left falling once more. Either homeless or married or about to be branded a traitor to the Empire if she hadn’t been already. One of the three and, once again, the fate of it was out of her hands.

 

Rey had never thought she was one to just wait and let what may happen happen, but there was no amount of willpower and telling herself to _get a kriffing move on it!_ Nothing that would make her pack up faster.

 

A few belongings went into her old backpack. The looters had taken anything of value, but they’d left behind practicalities. Clothes and a good fabric for a tent and the supplies needed to purify water. They’d even left her good boots where she’d hidden them.

 

She had all the making of a new life ahead of her. A new return to her old life. And she needed to hurry before it was all too late.

 

Hours went by, though. Hours of her puttering about, straightening up the shelves and sweeping the floors and going through Luke room again and a thousand times after that looking for a single clue what had happened to him.

 

Almost all of his possessions were gone. More of his then hers even though they were hardly of much higher value. 

 

So he ran away then? No foul play? It could have been either, but perhaps he had been more sensible than she was being right now and left on his own terms and not someone else’s decree.

 

It hurt that Kylo didn’t come for her. He could have at least sent his guards to drag her kicking and screaming- and yes, she would absolutely be doing both- back to the palace to await her sentencing. 

 

She has nowhere to go. And he just leaves her here to it. That was cruel even him. Discarding her like the trash she used to pick through.

 

Dishes had been cast on the dirty floor. She might as well wash them except, when she opens the door to take her pail to the communal well there he is.

 

Kylo gives every appearance of having been sitting on the low stone wall for quite a while. He has two guards with him, not the _things_ that protected his bedchamber, but two of the higher guards she’d seen ringing around him during his speech in the village center. They were still wearing their bright red formal attire bearing the blaze of the House of Alderaan but, in bold juxtaposition, they were loitering nearly as well as her husband was. Kylo himself is slumped, his hands in his lap and a bored expression on his face as he looks up to the afternoon sky.

 

“ _You_.”

 

What an inelegant thing o say. Nevan would have rolled her eyes if she’d heard how little her couching had shaped Rey’s mind yet.

 

Kylo blinks though, his overly expressive face shifting as he seems to literally swallow down whatever emotion he felt at seeing her.

 

“Where are you going?” he asks.

 

He doesn’t sit up and draw closer, but his voice is low. Behind him his guards straighten, their masked faces hiding themselves from her gaze. Rey keeps her footing, holding her ground just as she holds up her wooden pail.

 

“To get water.”

 

Kylo frowns. The fool didn’t realize there wasn’t the luxury of it flowing through a private tap.

 

For a moment they have some sort of odd face-off, both of them watching each other in silence. Rey doesn’t know what she feels at this moment, but her husband’s frown deepens and tightens the longer the quiet stretches.

 

He gives in first, though. Mercifully. With a grunt he pushes him up and off the wall, and a gesture behind him must tell his guards something Rey misses.

 

“I could have you killed, dear wife. I’m well within my power to do so.”

 

“Are you going to?”

 

His mouth twists, full lips pushing in at one side and out at another. His head shakes in ‘no’ even if he doesn’t say the words out loud.

 

Rey steps back, both to give distance and maybe to have this conversation inside. It’s very lucky at this time of day that the neighbors that can see Luke’s tucked away hut are at their jobs. Or were chased off by Kylo’s guards, but either way there’s nothing Rey cares to risk falling upon their ears.

 

When her husband steps inside he kicks the door shut behind him. Rey fusses with the handle of her water pail and wonder how effective the weight of it might be should the situation come to require its use.

 

“I could have you killed,” he repeats.

 

He steps forward and Rey backs up until the back of her heels knock against a footboard.

 

“Do you say that to all your wives?”

 

“Just a few.”

 

The dead sister, then? The one he cared about? 

 

No. Not now.

 

“Did you do something to Uncle Luke?” 

 

It seems the most logical thing to ask. Rey’s hardly about to beg for her life now when she’d bloody well had long enough to save it on her own.

 

Kylo scoffs. He looks around the now barren but tidy hut.

 

“I came here this morning very early. He was already gone. Some tra- little boy was in here filling his pockets with whatever could fit. No, Rey. I didn’t do anything to ‘Uncle Luke’, though you probably stop calling him that now that we’re wedded or tongue may start to click.”

 

Rey parses through that information, searching it for what could be the truths and what are lies.

 

“So you’re swearing your innocence to this, are you?” she asks, gesturing around the empty house.

 

Kylo shrugs, the portrait of insouciance. Truly his arrogant veneer will be the end of her.

 

“Yes, I am. Are you?”

 

Rey immediately falters, her lips pressing tightly together. She shakes her head, swallowing doubt the lump of fear or anger that had begun to tighten her vocal cords.

 

Kylo steps closer again, backing her into a corner now.

 

“Were you always part of the Resistance, Rey? Before or after our wedding, when did it start?”

 

Rey’s grip on the handle tightens. Kylo glances down at her whitening knuckles with a raised eyebrow.

 

“After. Shortly after, but after.”

 

He leans closer. She squirms and hates herself for it almost as much as she hates him at this moment.

 

“Are you lying?”

 

“No. Are you going to kill me?”

 

He seems to think about it. Rey stares at the ceiling above his head, a dark halo of his hair ghosting along the bottom edge of her vision with how closely he is leaning now.

 

“No,” he says finally, a tone of reluctance accompanying a deep sigh. “I’ve come to realize I rather like your head being on your shoulders, Rey. And your shoulders, too. I like them as well.”

 

His posture shifts. If he tries to touch her now she’s going slap him hard, guarantee. The only question of it is whether she’ll use her empty hand or not.

 

Kylo must sense him looming cranial danger because he back off by a step and then another until she resumes glaring at him at not the cracks on the ceiling plaster.

 

“Rey… it’s getting late. I’m not going to let you just stay here in this dive. It’s time to go back before someone notices you’re gone.”

 

Let her-

 

The sheer arrogant audacity of this man. The closed fisted hand starts to win out. Rey can almost hear the satisfying thud the wood would make against her husband infinitely thick skull.

 

“I’m not go back, Kylo.”

 

He rolls his eyes and his head along with it in a truly exaggerated display.

 

“Rey be _reasonable_. We have an agreement-”

 

“One that I’ve already broken so the point is moot. I’m not going back, Kylo.”

 

Except she almost does want to. Almost. How horrid would it be to be alone tonight? Huddling wherever she would end up by sunset and spending all night long wondering so many unanswered questions.

 

“Who’s Ben?”

 

_That_ question she needs to know. Of all of them, that was the one that had been the largest missing piece.

 

When he doesn’t immediately answer Rey turns, stepping to the side to go back and grab her bag before bolting. Kylo follows her, of course, and the way his expression visibly recoils when he takes in the sight of her old bedroom.

 

“You really stayed here? This is worse than I’d imagined.”

 

Rey’s grip on the pail tightens before she throws it aside to pick up her boots. She shoves them in her bag and ties it tightly closed before trying to sling it over her shoulder only to have Kylo takes it from her.

 

“Rey...” Again his face ripples, twisting in ways suggesting he was sucking on an extraordinarily tart lemon. “Ben is- that is a name that some people have called me by long ago. And I’d greatly rather you never speak it ever again.”

 

The verbal acknowledgement  t hat she’s going to ave an  _ ever again _ should be more  reassuring than it is right now.

 

“Some people? Like Uncle Luke?”

 

She reaches for her bag and he yanks it up higher than she can stretch.

 

“Don’t call him that, either. Rey, I’m not angry with you. Okay, yes, I’m furious with you, oh little Resistance spy wife of mine. But we had an agreement. Come back with me. There’s nothing left for you here.”

 

His hand reaches out, aiming like it means to stroke her cheek, but instead tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear before falling to rest of her shoulder.

 

“Tell me you regret it.”

 

His voice is quiet. Rey wishes she couldn’t hear him at all. She takes a few moments to calm herself before admitting the truth out loud.

 

“ _Bitterly_.”

 

“Bitterly? How lovely. Now I want to wring your neck even more.”

 

Odd that Rey had thought the same thing about Luke only hours before. Her husband’s hand tightens, holding her in place even as her instincts begin to demand she leaves both him and her home long behind.

 

Kylo half relents when she starts to squirm in earnest. He turns her and pushes her backwards, letting go so she falls into sitting on the edge of the bed. A cloud of old dust kicks up, making her cough and Kylo snort.

 

“I suppose if I asked how far the Resistance has infiltrated my palace you’d only lie, wouldn’t you?”

 

It’s not a proper accusation so Rey only shrugs and scoots back, leaning away to pick up her bag and place it next to her.

 

“If I were to ask you what’s so karking important in your mother’s letter to you, you’d only lie wouldn’t you?”

 

Kylo’s shoulders slump.

 

“I can’t trust you, Rey. You’ve told me to be faithful to you and I have been, and yet you can’t even be loyal to me for a week let alone a lifetime.”

 

Rey opens the ties to her bag just so her hands and eyes have something to do.

 

“A lifetime? Was that how long I was sold to Ben for?”

 

Rey can almost feel the shift in the air. The way her husband’s gaze must grow so cold as he look down at her.

 

She stands quickly, trying to bring them back to a more even playing field. Kylo turns from her before she can see his face. He starts to pace, his stride moving to and from blocking the door out too rapidly for her to try it.

 

“I don’t want to lose you too, Rey,” he tells her. “But I don’t know what to do you with. I really don’t. I had hoped that… I had hopes. You’ve let the Resistance taint your mind just like you’ve let Luke.”

 

“You speak as if you know him.”

 

Kylo stops then, looking at her with an expression of reproach.

 

“Know what he was? What he _is_? One of the Resistance’s key players. Of course I did, Rey. Did you really think me such a fool?”

 

Rey starts to answer that with honesty then thinks better of it.

 

“What do you want from me, Kylo? I have nothing to give you, but you’re here and so you must want something you think I have to offer.”

 

He answers quickly, as if he had expected that question and had prepared for it.

 

“Loyalty, Rey. But, barring that, I want you to come back to the Palace with me now.”

 

Go back with him? Go back to her room and endure the stares she’ll get from every set of eyes that she passes? Have the harem torment her, now with more cause then they’d ever had before? Have the Resistance beseech her, laying the safety of strangers in her incapable hands?

 

Keeping to herself night after night, knowing that the sweet moments she’d had with this man in front of her are over for good?

 

No. No, she doesn’t think she can do that.

 

“How about if you come with me instead?”

 

Rey doesn’t know why she said it. Or maybe she does. She wants to leave, but she doesn’t want to be alone. She doesn’t want to leave him behind. Her voice apparently has decided to take over with saying what her heart's been telling her all along.

 

It’s a grand, sweeping revelation. One that leaves Rey breathless, the weight of her bag suddenly too much for her to carry if she’s not going to allow herself to tremble in front of him.

 

Her husband on the other hand seems far less moved. He stares at her with his mouth slightly agape and a suspicious draw pulling at his eyebrows.

 

“Come with you? What trap are you leading me into now, Scavenger?”

 

He probably has many rights to be suspicious, but hearing him call her that for the first time still stings. Not enough to make her withdraw her offer, though.

 

“The Res-” words are hard and her tongue jumbles on them as it struggles to keep up with her mind. “The Resistance and its operatives,” she forces herself to articulate very clearly, “told me that you are cold hearted and blind to the suffering of your people. You’re spoiled beyond belief. That much I’ve seen easily.”

 

Kylo tries to stop her, tries to hold out his hand to cut her off. Rey snatches it and shoves it aside, determined for him to hear her out.

 

“You use my past, the past I never had a choice in, against me. You look at my Uncle’s-”

 

“He’s not your uncle.”

 

“Shut up. You look at this home like it’s something unfit to wipe the floor with. You want me to be loyal to you, Kylo? Come with me. Come to my old home in the desert. See the way I was forced to live under your family’s rule. See how others who aren’t so privileged to have a _home_ like Luke had offered to me have to suffer while you live in your Palace up on the hill looking down on us while every comfort is attended to. See this, make amends to your people, and I’ll pledge my loyalty to you forever.”

 

Kylo had been scowling at her as she verbally tore him down, but his eyes brighten slightly at that final word. 

 

“Forever? Darling? Forever is a terribly long time.”

 

“Less if I’m executed for treason.”

 

Kylo’s abrupt barking laugh makes her cross her arms over her chest to keep from jerking back.

 

“You may well be right about that, darling. Can you give me one reason to trust you? Just the one?”

 

Can she? No. Or maybe. It’s not a good reason, not at all, but it’s also all she has to offer.

 

“I stole some papers from your room when I was there. Some sort of schedule regarding you and the General. I gave it to- I handed it over. To them.”

 

Kylo’s outburst of mirth was short lived. He starts to sputter back and answer, and this time it’s Rey’s turn to wave him down.

 

“Because I’m telling you about it, you nerf-herder,” she snaps. “That’s why it’s a step forward for us. I didn’t have to tell you that. I could have just done it and let them do whatever they pleased with it.”

 

“Well thank you for that, Rey. But that schedule was Hux’s, not mine, so-” he pauses, seeming to think it over, “-so I supposed the Resistance now is going to be making _his_ life a misery for a change. Worse outcomes could be had, perhaps.”

 

He looks down then at the space between them. His palm extends, facing up, and Rey realizes that eh wants her to take it.

 

“Do- do we have a deal, then?” she asks.

 

The hand remains hovering. Kylo sighs again, sucking in a noisy and deep breath before speaking.

 

“One time when I was young, my parents were fighting. My mother had to go somewhere and do something, and they were arguing about whether Han would go with her or not. Do you know what they decided, Rey?”

 

She frowns, shakes her head, and wraps her arms tighter around herself.

 

“They decided they wouldn’t go together. They decided they wouldn’t because, if they had to spend that much close time with only each other, they might never want to speak to each other again.”

 

“… alright?”

 

“The irony of the story, Rey, is that that very night Han himself left and neither my mother nor I saw him again for nearly a year. It was the start of many such absences between them.”

 

He reaches out again, this time seizing her shoulder in one hand and gently, firmly prying her buried hands free with the other. He grips her palm in his own, drawing her closer to him in jerky motions.

 

She has to swallow, throat oddly dry, before she can force herself to speak.

 

“Is that a yes or a no, Kylo? Because, if it’s a no, I need to be on my way while there’s still daylight.”

 

“And I’ll have a garden of lush flesh to keep my lonesome heart company tonight.”

 

Rey tries not to rise to meet his petty bait. She tries, but her palm starts to itch as if longing to exert itself on something worthy. 

 

“You-”

 

“Yes, Rey. I’ll leave with you. Just for tonight. You’ll show me what you have to show me, and I’ll try with open eyes to see what truly must be so terrible about myself. And I’ll do all this on but one condition, Rey. Or perhaps I should say two. On two conditions.”

 

His hand on her shoulder springs down, catching the wrist of the hand she had been thinking about slapping him with. He holds her firmly, keeping them in close contact until Rey mutters a curse and lets her ams go limp in his grip.

 

“Fine, Kylo. What are they? Out with it.”

 

“My guards have to come with us.”

 

“Oh how subtle and undetectable. Truly no one will see us with your entourage. Who else must you take with you?”

 

“Just them. Just the two outside. They’re more than well prepared should you prove not to be a woman of your word. _Again_.”

 

Loathe as Rey might be to admit it, the thought of having two well armed bastions of protection with her out in the desert wastes was not a poor one.

 

“Fine. They can come. Help us haul enough water and they’d better pull their own weight. Now what’s your second condition?”

 

Kylo leans further towards her, his lips curling up into a smile as she steps into his trap.

 

“Do you promise to obey it?”

 

“No. You’re horrible. Now what is it?”

 

“I’ll go if, and _only_ if, then we call it our honeymoon.”

 

Her husband has a talent for saying the exact wrong thing at the worst time. Rey probably suffers from this same malady herself, but it’s nothing a quick twist of her wrist out of his grasp and a kick to his shin can’t resolve.

 

“Call it what you want, _your Highness._ I call it a truce. A cease fire. Now go into the kitchen and see if there are any pots left that will hold water. Send one of your men to the wells to fill them while I finish packing.

 

She shoves at his chest, finally earning herself room to breathe again. She hardly had anything more to pack, but it was a welcome relief when Kylo steps back from her with a polite tip of his head.

 

“And when I turn around will I ever see you again?”

 

Rey toys with the notion of lobbing a shoe at him for good measure, just like she would with a mangy stray trying to come into the house.

 

“There are no bloody windows in my room here, are there?”

 

None at all in her tiny bedroom that both seems bigger and smaller when her husband steps back out of it.

 

“There were many windows in the room I gave you in the palace, Rey. Remember that. Now be kind, darling, and don’t keep your husband waiting for too long.”

 

He closes the door behind him when he goes but Rey is quite sure he can still here her muttering ‘what an insufferable ass’ under her breath.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, we finally made it to and though this scene! This and the last chapter didn’t come so easily to me but they were essential to set the ground of what’s to come.  
> And what IS to come, you ask?  
> Act Two! We’ve finally made it to act two! Now it’s just Kylo, Rey, and two scarlet-tuniced guards heading out into the desert to find Rey’s old home. Because nothing says Happy Honeymoon more than a bickering married couple, a couple of redshirts, and a road trip through the sands!
> 
> And, on a personal note, I'm about tot start a novella a week writing challenge starting in a few days so please wish me luck with that! I’m going to need it!
> 
> -
> 
>  
> 
> And, as always, find me on tumblr at [ **lost-inthesunlight.tumblr.com**](https://lost-inthesunlight.tumblr.com/) and on twitter at [ **@Ava_Avdal**](https://twitter.com/Ava_Avdal) :)
> 
> Find this week's moodboard [ **HERE**](https://lost-inthesunlight.tumblr.com/post/183250674213/the-path-the-moonbeams-make-chapter-11-read-it)


	12. Hands and Desert Sands, Both Shifting as They Ride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Rey and The Gang set out into the hills...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay everyone! I’m back now! Ready and rarin’ to go into Act 2!

**ACT TWO**

 

 

 

Kylo was no gentleman.

 

Rey had never assumed that her husband was, truthfully. But it wasn’t until they were an hour beyond the city walls that she realized he was a complete and utter _scoundrel_.

 

“There’s not enough horses.”

 

Rey was right. There were only three horses, in fact. Three for four people.

 

“You’ll have to sit with me, then,” her scoundrel husband answered.

 

That had been the start of it. Of his misbehavior. His two brightly-attired guards were big, burly things that took up plenty of space in their own right. Rey could neither ask them to share with each other or to give up one of their own steeds and force them to walk in all that armor through the blistering desert hills.

 

That left her with sharing a saddle with her husband and counting on him to behave himself. She should have known better.

 

It didn’t start small, it started right off at full steam antagonism.

 

Kylo’s hands circled around her waist and she nearly jumped right out of her dress in shock.

 

“Rey?”

 

Her voice squeaks some sort of noise in answer. His hands tighten, move up and down and bordering just on the verge of sending her into a fit.

 

“I asked you a question.”

 

Their horse starts to lag behind, no longer prompted to keep up with the others. The two guards start to take notice but Kylo waves them ahead.

 

“W- wha- did you?”

 

Her voice schools itself on the last two syllables.

 

“Mhmmm.”

 

His chest rumbles against her back. Rey swallows, her throat as dry as the parched landscape around her. They were in the rolling hills that surround the capital city now, and soon their route would take them into the canyon lands. Despite her promise to educate Kylo on the sufferings of his own people, Rey had still opted to take the most roundabout and discrete path to her old home.

 

“Oh, um,” she’s apparently very bumblish when distracted as she is now. “You asked when we would get there?”

 

“Hmmmmm.”

 

It’s a lower rumble. Kylo lets go of her with one hand to catch the reins and prompt their horse to move a little faster. His guards were a good twenty paces ahead of them. Rey didn’t know whether to feel comforted that they couldn’t see how flustered she was becoming or alarmed that about the false sense of privacy her husband seemed so emboldened by.

 

“By nightfall,” she answers. “My house, my _old_ house, it’s not much. Just a ruin. You’ll hate it.”

 

His hand loops the rein around the spur of the saddle. Rey can see him tip his head forward to regard her.

 

“Allow me to make my own judgments, wife.”

 

She swallows again and squares her jaw, tipping her chin up in a show of of false courage.

 

“You quite like calling me ‘wife’, don’t you Kylo?”

 

Rey mutters it softly. The guards were well ahead of them by now but she’d still rather take no chances they would hear her.

 

Kylo chuckles. Even the horse makes a sound under it’s breath as if mocking her.

 

Then Rey realizes she’d been inconsiderately kicking it’s side with her heel in her annoyance. She clicks her tongue in apology and Kylo straightens behind her.

 

One of his hands grips her forearm as if to steady her. Unnecessary since their pace was slow and the route was mostly even. Rey allows it, though, because sometimes it was simply easier to annoy the greatest irritation in her life than to address it in ultimate futility.

 

They continue on like that for another good hour. An errant thought that they might not make it to her old home- if there was anything left out if after all this time- before nightfall whips through her mind.

 

“Left at the next crossing,” she calls out. “It will save us a tedious uphill stretch.”

 

“Miles longer but minutes shorter?” Kylo asks, saying it quietly into her ear until she bounces her shoulder at him to make him back off.

 

Truth be told, Rey wasn’t completely sure where they were. Well, maybe she was, but this wasn't the route she’d normally take and it had been so long. The shape of the hills is the same, though the winds had shaped the sands differently than she exactly remembered.

 

And Kylo wasn’t helping in the slightest. No, when she continued to ignore his ever encroaching proximity, she reckoned he must have taken that as a personal challenge. He leans forward, closer still, and his free hand drops the reins again to pick up the edge of her sleeve.

 

“It’s very pretty. I’m glad you’re wearing it. All the clothes I’ve given you are pretty.”

 

She rolls her eyes, pulling her sleeve free only to have her husband catch her wrist and circle it with his palm.

 

“It’s a dreadfully impractical thing to wear, especially on a horse. I should have taken some of my own clothes. Hard to believe that this was the most modest of my whole wardrobe at the palace.”

 

He hums. Rey swallows. She shouts to the guards ahead the next direction, hoping that the loudness of her voice would dissuade her rear groper.

 

It doesn’t. His touch drifts up, sliding along her arms to her shoulders.

 

She doesn’t dare look back. Doesn’t dare make a scene or their twin protectors ahead might look back and see how flushed her burning cheeks must be.

 

When Kylo sighs, Rey feels it _everywhere_.

 

She grits her teeth, desperately trying and failing to control the goosebumps that break along the exposed areas of her skin.

 

“Kylo,” she kisses, “move your hands.”

 

Oh he does. Moves them in circles. Rubbing her back. Massaging her shoulders.

 

She squeaks when his too-warm touches converge at the line of her spine. The guards ahead of her straighten, clearly having heard her make that embarrassing sound.

 

“Gods Kylo,” she grits it out through tightly clenched teeth, “what is with you? Why are you behaving like this?”

 

He shrugs, rocking her body with his movement.

 

“You’re my wife, Rey.”

 

As if that was enough of an explanation. As if that gave him the right to distract her when she was trying to remember how this roundabout trail went backwards from the city to her old home.

 

“Wife in name only,” Rey reminds him.

 

She regrets her curt words immediately. She can sense how much they hurt him and she presses her lips together to stop herself from apologist. When he grants her wish and his hands fall away from her shoulders it’s her turn to catch them in her own. She awkwardly hands him the reins, letting him guide the horse but really hold her in a half embrace between his arms.

 

“Tomorrow,” she says, her voice cracking as Kylo leans in close again to hear her. “Tomorrow I’ll show you how the other half your kingdom lives. How _I_ had to live until Uncle Luke rescued me from out of the blue.”

 

Kylo doesn’t answer for a moment. The rocking of the horse increases as the trail becomes rougher and less traveled. It pushes her back against him, and Rey briefly sees the knuckles on his hand whiten before his grip on the reins relaxes.

 

“Don’t call him that, Rey. Please. People will talk.”

 

Whatever that means. One of his hands falls to her hip, this time perhaps honestly steadying her as their horse unsteadily navigates itself over a loose stretch of scree. Rey gives in and nods, dropping whatever point she had been trying to make.

 

When Kylo leans to the side, closer so that he can look at her, Rey stubbornly refuses to meet his eyes.

 

*

 

The weather was shifting with the steadily dwindling pace of the afternoon.

 

It had started off cloudy, which was a blessing against the harsh beams of the midday sun. Now it was clear and the sky was starting to deepen. The sun was at such an angle that it was glaring straight into her eyes, making choosing the right path even harder.

 

They hadn’t seen another soul all day. That part was nearly as concerning as the growing certainty that she had lead them off-course and they would have to make camp out in the open sands soon.

 

The desert wastes were barren, and she had chosen the loneliest road she had thought to take. Still, though, it was odd to see the path so empty.

 

She really had gotten them lost, hadn’t she?

 

Kylo didn’t know. Not yet. At least there was that small mercy.

 

This conundrum was also entirely his fault. If he hadn’t kept on _distracting_ her…

 

Even now, he was still doing it! His touches may have seemed innocent to an onlooker, but Rey knew better.

 

He was beyond persistent. He was relentless. His hand was now on her thigh. Rude. Incorrigible. Unreformable.

 

Rey kept bouncing her leg to jostle him back but he wouldn’t get the hint. What a thick-headed git she had married, truly.

 

Far worse than just his unrelenting touch was that it was starting to have an effect on her. Rey was starting to feel very, very uncomfortable the longer she was riding with him so close to her.

 

His breath would fan against her ear and Rey would swear that every hair on her head would stand on end. He wasn’t talking, thank the gods for that, but… but…

 

He leaned in even closer, making Rey bend forward slightly as his warm weight presses flush against her back. They were crossing a stretch of shadows now, the sun having disappeared behind a tall rocky spire for a few minutes, and his temperature wasn’t nearly as undesirable as it should have been.

 

Because she was getting cold, that’s why. It was going to be a cold night. Stupid for her getting them lost when the skies were so clear. Stupider for her to have let him lead her mind astray to begin with.

 

A deeper sigh from him, this time with a hint of the lowest notes to his voice with it, and Rey squirms. In some ways his silence was even worse. When he was talking it was easy for her to find her anger. Everything her husband seemed to say was an affront to any normal sensibilities. Anger she could respond to, but this dedicated, focused attention he was currently nearly literally heaping onto her?

 

His hand on her thigh shifts, moving with the rocking of the horse. It draws higher up her leg and Rey has to bite her lower lip rather hard to keep from gasping.

 

The sheer _nerve_!

 

She can feel his heartbeat against her back. It’s not even racing. Hers is. She starts to tremble a little as his hand glides higher still, creeping treacherously close to the part of her that will make her cast him violently off their horse should he dare, regicide or not.

 

Then he nuzzles her neck, his hair tickling her bared shoulders and his lips skimming against her skin. That does her in. That breaks the very last thread of her patience.

 

“Kylo!” she hisses, pushing back at him harshly to throw his weight off, “you will control yourself or we’re turning around right now!”

 

He huffs but doesn’t budge. Rey balls her hand into a fist, bends her arm at a sharp angle, and elbows him fiercely in his ribs.

 

Kylo cries out, gasping first then choking in surprise.

 

His guards turn, looking back at them. Rey frowns, her scowl deepening for a moment before she realizes her foolish mistake.

 

_Oh._

 

“You were sleeping?!”

 

How- he was groping her in his sleep? Is she really married to that much of a deviant?

 

Or perhaps she had incorrectly judged the true meaning of his gestures upon her and somehow that misunderstanding was even worse. That had really all been in her mind, then?

 

Kylo snorts, leaning forward on purpose now glare rather sulkily at her. Ahead of them the two guards exchange a look with each other before facing away, their posture a little straighter than before.

 

“Beloved?” Kylo asks, “Is all well with you? Has an evil tremor has taken over and made you strike me?”

 

Stupidly Rey misses his body heat. It’s getting colder as the sun approaches setting on the horizon, not that it had been on them for the last half hour. Not that following the direction it was setting in had kept that from getting lost, either.

 

But she had been right about one thing: as soon as her husband opens his mouth she feels flushed with anger. Possibly indignation as well, since the cumbersome reactions she’d been having to his proximity could ave been avoided if he hadn’t decided to nod off on her to begin with.

 

“Oh shut up,” she finally answers. “I had thought that you were… molesting me. That was a very easy thing for me to believe.”

 

She had meant it as a barb, but predictably her husband only seems amused by her earnest confession.

 

“Ah, I see,” he says. “And now you’re angry that I wasn’t, is that right? That I had been sleeping instead? Well, Rey, I must confess to have gotten little rest last night, but if you’re disappointed with my lack of attention to having you so close shall I make it up to you now?”

 

His hands grip her hips. Tightly. Thumbs rubbing in circles.

 

Oh. Yes. That was the difference, wasn’t it. This touch was very purposeful in its provocation.

 

“ _Kylo_.”

 

A feeling not unlike a belly full of butterflies begins to fill her. Rey can feel the blood rush to her head, making her slightly breathless with fresh embarrassment.

 

“Rey, I’m still mad at you. Darling wife. Darling, beautiful, treacherous wife.”

 

His chin rests on her shoulder and his grip doesn’t waver now matter how much she squirms in the saddle to get away.

 

“Well, Kylo I’m still mad at you too.”

 

His laugh rumbles. Ahead of them the guard remain rigid with attention to only the winding trail in front.

 

“Oh you are? I couldn’t tell the difference from your normal state.”

 

His lips press against her cheek, kissing her chastely. Rey swallows down the lump in her throat. This is ridiculous. It’s an absolute assault on all she believes in that he think he can get away with such conduct.

 

“No answer?” Kylo teases. “I had thought that if sleeping against you would get the wind knocked out of me that doing _this_ would end with my face in the sand.”

 

He reaches up then, bolder than ever, and catches her chin. His hand even skims over her bosom on its ascent and Rey finds herself too utterly mortified to do more than stare at him with wide, panicked eyes.

 

“Hmmm...” he sounds entirely too pleased with himself. “You know, my dear wife, you’re still not telling me to stop. To keep my hands to myself. I could almost think you quite like me touching you after all.”

 

His other arm wraps tighter around her waist. Different also from before. Higher up and hugging her much more with purpose.

 

“Gods Kylo.” He must be crushing the breath right out of her, for all the reed-thin nature her voice suddenly as. “What is going to with you today?”

 

Her husband had always been quite forward with her, but never like this. Is it because they were mostly alone now? What a terrible mistake she’s made coming out into the desert with him, and they’re hardly even truly by themselves.

 

Kylo nuzzles the back of her head. She’d thought he’s done that earlier when he’d been simply sleeping against her, but now he full on buries his face in her hair and she can hear him inhale as much as she can feel his massive chest inflate with the movement.

 

When he pulls away, Rey’s gripping the edges of the saddle so tightly she’s sure there will be ten crescent shaped imprints against its leather.

 

“You’ve denied me for so long, Rey. I told you I would be climbing the walls. I told you I would be climbing _you_.”

 

Rey pulls her chin free of his grip and his fingers trace her lips instead. She has to fight the urge to bite him. He’d certainly deserve it, wouldn’t he?

 

“It’s been a week, Kylo! We’ve been married for only a week!”

 

Their horse stirs. She’d been heeling at it again, and this time the steeds of the guards ahead of them whinny in sympathy to their friend.

 

Kylo pays none of it any attention. He’s so warm. So everywhere.

 

“A very, very _hard_ week, Rey. You’ve captivated me, and yet you waste no chance to throw me away like I’m nothing. You don’t treat me like a prince at all, do you? Wife?”

 

Rey knows that he must feel the shiver that shoots along her spine. He embraces her fully now, wrapping both arms around her shoulders and holding her very effectively in place.

 

“When was the last time anyone ever held you for so long, Rey?”

 

His question makes her blink. It brings with it a most unpleasant wave of conflicting emotions. Anger and intrigue and bitter memories wash over her and it’s all Rey can do to shake her head since she can’t trust her voice.

 

“Never, then? Darling, I’m not even doing anything to you. Tell me to stop and I will.”

 

She can’t tell him that. Can’t because, if she starts, she’s not sure what will happen next. All she wants is peace. A quiet, peaceful ride through the admittedly beautiful hills. The sun is gone now, but the higher peaks around them carry its fiery glow. They don’t bring half the heat that her husband does as he holds her and doesn't let go.

 

“Rey?”

 

When he blinks she can feel his eyelashes brush against her temple.

 

“What?”

 

The word is so small it must only be carried to him by the evening breeze.

 

“I think you’re far more deprived than you realize, lovely wife of mine.”

 

Rey flushes again. The truth of his words starts to sap her will. She tries to gather her forces and summon her natural irritation regarding this wicked man to come to her defense.

 

“You shouldn't touch me so brazenly, Kylo.”

 

You shouldn’t touch me. That’s not what she said. She’d meant to say that, but she didn’t.

 

His lips curl into a smile. They’re so close now they’re almost all she can see.

 

“Why?” he asks.

 

One of his hands around her waist flutters its fingers, tickling her through the thing fabric of her royal gown. Rey squeaks again, triggering another chain reaction of whinnies from the trio of horses.

 

“ _Because_ -”

 

She grips his hands. Squeezes them. Wants to pull them off but she doesn’t do that, either.

 

“Because your guards will see us.”

 

She tips her head away just as his moves closer still. If he wants to kiss her, then- oh no no no.

 

Rey can see the highly amused glint in his eye. There he is again. There’s that side of her husband that’s so easy for her to always be cross with.

 

He pulls back then, not far but enough so that he can call out without shouting into her ear.

 

“Guards! Your attention!”

 

Rey’s eyes widen. Obediently the guards pull slower at their horses pace. They both look back over their shoulders at Kylo. And at Rey.

 

“What are you-” she starts to ask but Kylo interrupts her rudely.

 

“Guards!” he bellows again. “My wife wishes for me to touch her now. You are not to look back here no matter what sounds she makes, do you understand?”

 

Rey chokes. She wants to scream at him, but every part of her locks up. Kylo seems to take this as even more of a challenge.

 

“She can be quite noisy, my dear wife. Don’t mind us if she happens to - _oof_!”

 

If he’d thought she’d elbowed him hard in the ribs before, this time Rey can feel the blow all through her bones to her shoulder.

 

Kylo backs away then, a pained smirk on his face, but the damage has been done. Rey can hardly remember a time she wanted to bury her head and hide more.

 

“Eyes forward, men,” Kylo repeats, slumping back and releasing her to rub his sore side.

It takes Rey a good few breaths to collect herself and keep from screaming. Then she throws her head back in the hopes of clipping her idiot husband square on the tip of his idiot nose with the back of it.

 

“ _Gods_.”

 

“Darling?”

 

Kylo reaches out and tucks her windblown hair away, brushing it so tenderly off her forehead that it only makes Rey even more irritated with him.

 

“Did you have to do that?” she snaps. “Did you have to say it like that?”

 

The guards, as true proof of their loyalty, were obeying to the letter. They even sped their horses up, still staying close but now several more paces ahead then they had been before. And they don’t look back once, nor even to the sides or at each other.

 

“No, Rey, I didn’t,” Kylo admits. “It was just funnier this way. Now may I kiss you?”

 

Rey tries to scowl and roll her eyes at the same time. Combined it just makes her dizzy.

 

“Kiss me? Kylo, you have the worst timing, the worst manners-”

 

His hand catches her chin, gently stopping the heartfelt tirade she had been building up into.

 

“So I have been told, darling. You are so terribly beautiful when you’re angry. So full of life.”

 

Her next retort flounders in her mind. The impossible man behind her actually sounds genuine in his praise. He will be the end of her. He truly will be.

 

“Is that why you always make me so angry, _husband_? Or is it simply a byproduct of your true nature?”

 

He smiles big and wide. His other arm wraps itself around her shoulders rather delicately in contrast to the full embrace he had given her before.

 

“Sometimes I do. Just because I love to see you like this. So present in the moment. Now can I kiss you? Please? Wife? Darling? Beloved? Sweetest to this heart of mine?”

 

Rey wrinkles her nose. He doesn’t budge or seem to lose a flick of interest.

 

“Will you keep calling me those abominable pet names if I say no?”

 

Rey already knows the answer to that. It’s written all over her husband’s face. His eyes slide half shut and Rey takes that as her cue to close her own tight. She lets him tip her head back, her heart suddenly thundering in her ears.

 

It’s just a kiss. Nothing more. Just to shut him up. Pantomime her way through her wifely duties and then it will all be over in a heartbeat.

 

This is still one of their first kisses. Before he had been so sweet. He still is, but there’s an underlying urgency to how he moves his lips over hers that positively takes her breath away.

 

Rey _swoons_ , slumping back against him. Kylo supports her, their kiss intensifying. For a moment all she can feel is him. Not the swaying of the horse under them or the chill in the air or even her own common sense shouting at her not to fall for her husband’s tricks.

 

A little sigh escapes her as his tongue presses against the seam of her lips. She parts them slightly, her trance budging only enough for her to feel shy again at how little she knows what she’s doing.

 

Kylo’s hand leaves her chin to sink itself into her hair and Rey melts backwards, bending closer to him. She tries to return the kiss. Fumbling. Awkward. It feels good, though. Too good. Heat starts to settle, making her suddenly very aware of the saddle between her legs.

 

“Gods,” she whispers again, pulling away.

 

She buries her face in Kylo’s palm, her cheeks stinging like never before. She can’t look at him. Can’t bear it. He kisses her shoulder then and a shiver sharper than before overcomes her.

 

“Please,” she whimpers, mumbling the words against the meat of his palm.

 

“More?” his voice asks into her ear.

 

She shakes her head then, cracking her eyes open just long enough to make sure the guards aren’t looking. They aren’t.

 

“No. No more. Not now.”

 

Another kiss, this time to her temple. Kylo starts to pull away and Rey grips his hand so she can keep her face buried in it. She’d wanted to hide before, but now it’s a necessity.

 

“Rey.”

 

She shakes her head again, her lips starting to spread into a stupidly wide grin despite herself.

 

“Rey. You are _beautiful_.”

 

She almost laughs, emotions surging up in her as fast as she can push them down.

 

“Not like Nevan,” she answers.

 

She drops her grip on his hand then, letting her palms fall limply into her lip. It’s all she can do to keep upright. She wants to run, hide, or laugh like a lunatic. Maybe all three.

 

“No,” Kylo agrees. “Not like Nevan. Better. More real.”

 

And his own hand drops to hers, threading their fingers together. Rey lets herself slump back against him, leaning her own head against his shoulder this time. He doesn’t say anything more but it’s still a good ten minutes more before Rey stops smiling so wide her cheeks hurt.

 

*

 

They’re going to have to camp out tonight. That was predictable. Rey had hardly been able to think at all until it was nearly dark.

 

Then her survival instinct took over. Where they were was pretty safe. There were other scavengers about, but she could take care of them on her own and now she was part of a well armed party of four.

 

The weather, on the other hand, was a bit more of a problem. The sky was clear and Rey’s breath was fogging in the flickering firelight as she directed her husband’s guards to various tasks.

 

“Gather as many armfuls of firewood as you can,” she says to the sightly taller one of the two since she had never gotten their names yet. “Don’t pick anything with thorns. There’s a good chance its fit tor burn but there are some bushes out here with a very foul smoke. Best to avoid anything that can prick you entirely.”

 

The guard nods. He doesn’t speak much, and neither did the other who is currently charged with tending to the horses and settling them down for the night.

 

“Where should I place the bed rolls, Rey?” Kylo asks

 

The bundle of blankets and scraps she’d taken from Luke’s home is in his arms. He hadn’t been cross with her when she’d been forced to admit they weren’t poignant o make it to her old hum by nightfall. Rather, he had seemed almost excited by the prospect. Like a little boy out on a camping trip.

 

“Place them next to that rock wall but not flush against it.” she instructs. “We want the heat of the fire to reflect back on us, but do make the mattresses thick. The ground will sap the heat away faster than anything.”

 

Truth be told? Rey felt very important right now. Nevermind that her own foolish distraction had brought them into this situation, but now not one but three men of a higher station that she had once been were depending on her. Were listening to her.

 

Power was an intriguing thing, wasn’t it?

 

Rey brushes that thought away, straightening up the careless edges of the first bedroll her husband had laid down.

 

“Where’s mine?” she asks.

 

Only two beds had been set out. Two beds for four people, though Kylo had said the guards would be taking alternating shifts throughout the night.

 

The fire they had made was small, but it was plenty big enough for Rey to see the smirk flickering at her husband’s face.

 

“ _Kylo_. I’m not-”

 

“We’ve shared a bed before, darling. Though if you’re planning on spying on me in my slumber, let me save you the effort and tell you that all my nefarious secrets are locked away. Where? At the palace? Here? In my trousers? Perhaps there’s only one way you can find out for sure.”

 

Rey picks up a stone that was in the way. Thinks long and hard about casting it forcefully at her husband. Or maybe near enough to him just to keep him on his toes. Reason wins out, ultimately, and she tosses it aside in favor of stretching out the second bedroll as wide as she can make it.

 

“You will stay on your side, do you understand? No wandering hands or such, we’ve had more than enough of that today already.”

 

Kylo hums in agreement. He’s far too pleased with himself. He always is.

 

“I get the side closest to the fire,” Rey adds, eyeing the too thin blankets. They hadn’t packed right for sleeping out at all, but this hadn’t been intended.

 

“I’m the crown prince.”

 

Rey looks up at her husband. He’d been trying to lay out the top most blanket but was simply flicking dirt onto the other layers. And he seems earnestly surprised that he’s not the one to get the most advantageous spot.

 

“And the crown prince gets to sleep with his back to a cold stone wall and his hands firmly on his own side, understand? Now let’s go and have some dinner. Call your men back over, I don’t think they like me very much.”

 

Rey actually has no idea what his men think of her or not, but she finds herself eager for even a few moments reprieve. Kylo had been very clingy ever since she gave into him earlier. She shouldn’t have done it. It certainly won’t happen again, obviously, but it was foolish of her to let such false hope into the abundant space between her husband’s ears.

 

Dinner consisted of bread rolls and butter and dried jerky. A far cry for the elegant meals at the palace, but Rey had insisted she stop at a market stall on the way out of town and this was all they had. If she hadn’t gotten this much they would be going hungry tonight, and Rey has a sinking feeling Kylo would be quite the grump if he was put to actual discomfort.

 

And, even in this short span of their marriage, Rey herself has to admit she’d been getting soft to luxury. Already her stomach was growling, and she spreads a thicker layer of butter on her piece of bread before passing the rest out to the three hungry men circling her.

 

After dinner Kylo had the nerve to ask her for a bedtime story. Rey was tired, exhausted really after such a trying day, but the way he had said it had reminded her so much of better times she had no choice but to give in.

 

Another chapter down. Rey hadn’t thought much of the book she had taken with her. She had fled the palace in a daze, her head not straight on her shoulders, but now reading the familiar blue tome brought a sense of peace that she would have otherwise lacked with having to sleep out in the open.

 

Even the guards seemed to listen in, though they pretended otherwise. This chapter was a shorter one. A tale about a rich old man who was a miser but then gave everything away with his last days. Kylo had seemed oddly moved by the story. He listened in silence, but Rey saw the way his brows would pull tight or the lines on his forehead would deepen during certain passages.

 

When she finished and it was time for bed, he handed her a handkerchief to wrap the book in. Then he settled down next to her, laying on his back with his hands obediently clasped over his stomach and not around her.

 

She wasn’t sure when she fell asleep, only that it took her well into the night.

 

*

 

Rey woke with a start.

 

A hand was on her shoulder, shaking her gently, and a finger was pressed to her lips. Her husband was crouching over her, a horse blanket of all things ridiculously wrapped over his shoulders. Behind him the moon was high in the sky. A growing crescent that told her that the time was around midnight or closer to dawn.

 

She blinks up at him, whatever dream she had been having dissipating from her mind within the first instant of waking.

 

“Come with me.”

 

He whispers it quietly, and behind him Rey can see both guards fast asleep. One is a shapeless form in the bedroll, and the other is slumped against a boulder, his head down and a soft snore coming from his parted lips.

 

“What?” she asks dumbly. “What did you wake me up for? What’s wrong?”

 

The fire was nearly out. Kylo should have put another branch on, but he was clearly too ignorant of such life skills to realize that himself.

 

“Come with me,” he repeats. “I couldn’t sleep so I went up to that hill behind us. I’ve never seen so many stars in my life. I didn’t know there were so many in the sky. Come, please. Let us look at them.”

 

Rey frowns, grumbling under her breath. She was chilled even now wrapped up in her bedding, but she would have to get up anyhow to keep the fire alive.

 

With a sigh she sits up, taking Kylo’s hand and letting her guide her to her feet.

 

“Just for a few minutes, Kylo.”

 

His hand is chilled against her own, but his smile is warm. Rey tosses a branch onto the fire and pulls her shroud of blankets close before letting him lead her away into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again for taking this long to get this chapter up (the next of Horizon to Horizon is coming up tomorrow or really soon, promise!). Probably most of you don’t know but back in December I started my own graphic design freelance business and I’ve recently had to move my website hosts. I had iPage before and they were… alright. I didn’t hate them, but when my contract was up for renewal I decided to move on. After a long search I’m now hosted with siteground and so far so good! If anyone’s ever looking for a host, I can recommend them as a good one and I went through 4 before settling on them!
> 
> Back to the story: now we’ve left the palace drama behind (or at least for now, it’ll be back!!) and it’s time for some desert frolicking. So far so good, right? Ands Kylo’s one smooth operator, lol. He’s figured out a winning strategy: when Rey starts to get furious with him, he just has to flatter or fluster her and it knocks her diatribe off course. Plus a little horseback playtime never hurt any budding relationship, right?
> 
> And you all HAVE TO check out the artwork for this chapter, it's like the best thing ever! You seriously have to!!! [ LINK](https://lost-inthesunlight.tumblr.com/post/183568200453/the-path-that-moonbeams-make-chapter-12-read-it)
> 
>  
> 
> -
> 
> Finally, as always, you can find me on tumblr still at [ lost-inthesunlight](https://lost-inthesunlight.tumblr.com/) or now on twitter at [ @Ava_Avdal](https://twitter.com/Ava_Avdal) :)


	13. Adrift and at Peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A complication amongst the stars.

“This is ridiculous. _You’re_ ridiculous. You know that, right?”

 

Kylo’s lips curled up. She couldn't see them, but she could feel his smile against her shoulder where he was leaning his head.

 

“Darling? Ridiculous might be the nicest thing you’ve ever called me.”

 

His arms wrap tighter around her, his face nuzzling closer to the join of her neck. Rey swallows, digging her fingers into the horse blanket they were sitting on to keep herself from shivering.

 

“Is this not how you thought our honeymoon would be, beloved?”

 

Again with the pet names. Rey doesn’t know how she feels about them. Though, now with his consistent encroaching nearness, Rey doesn’t know how she feels about much of anything.

 

“I didn’t think we’d have a honeymoon at all, _Your Highness_. Least of all one spent freezing under the desert moon, sitting on a horse blanket of all things.”

 

The dark shadow that is her husband’s head lifts up. Rey can feel a slight dampness cling to the exposed areas of her shoulder and collarbones where he had been raining kisses down upon. He rests his chin there instead, looking up at the stars with his face so close to hers.

 

“I can warm you up,” he offers.

 

“I knew you would say that.”

 

Now she can see his smile. The moon is growing still, now bright and more than just a crescent. All around them the desert is still. She can’t even  hear the crackle of their fire from the other side of the  large hill behind them.

 

“Do you know what that one is called? The one next to the Sailor’s Star?”

 

The constellation was like a grand, sweeping spiral. It reminded Rey of the train of her gowns, and it seemed to elegantly almost cradle the maritime beacon that always pointed  toward the north.

 

“Uncle Luke told me the name of it, but… something like ‘the handmaid’s braid’ or something. It rhymed. I remember that, and I used to watch it when I was little. As the months would progress it would spin and turn itself into the shape of a wave.”

 

Kylo swallows. The sound of it is  rather wet and makes Rey’s skin prickle.

 

“You don’t like me calling him that, do you?” she asks.

 

He doesn’t answer. Rey is starting to realize that that’s her husband’s way of saying ‘yes’ to  uncomfortable questions.

 

She presses herself back into him, her half exposed shoulders seeking o u t his warmth practically on their own. Kylo flops down, laying flat on their makeshift blanket and hauling Rey with him. It brings her to  rather awkwardly lay on his chest, but his arms tighten again when she starts to pull away.

 

“Kylo-”

 

“What about that one?” He lets go of her just long enough to point at a trio of bright, glittering stars with a blue tint. “Is that a constellation, too? More than one?”

 

His breath tickles her hair and his chest rumbles underneath her and it reminds Rey of the ride here. She’d been quite angry at him then, if she remembers. It was better now, when it was just the two of them.

 

“Laruam,” she says softly.  “The Specter. It was named after three siblings. Laruam, Tenebris, Advena. There was an old fairy tale about them. There were three children who grew up very different. One was rich, one was poor, and one was forgotten. They all ended up as stars.”

 

His hands leave her waist to rub up and down her arms. Rey realizes she’d been shivering. The dress she was wearing was far too thin for such a crisp, clear night.

 

“Will you tell me it?”

 

He kisses her temple but Rey shakes her  head.

 

“Not tonight. It’s a sad story, not a happy one. I’ll save it for another time.”

 

He frowns then. She looks up at him, but quickly away. 

 

The wind picks up and Rey isn’t sure what sort of silence they’re having now. 

 

“Can I-”

 

She starts to ask something, but isn’t sure how to finish it. He stares at her so openly now, his face calm and his eyes soft and heavy-lidded. This is him. This is the version of her husband she likes best, and for some reason that puts her uneasy.

 

Rey shifts her  weight off of him, but then tucks herself in close. Her head naturally comes to rest on his  shoulder and his arm flutters in the air above her a few pulses before coming to rest feather-light around  h er.

 

“Rey.”

 

It’s her turn to swallow. Her chest is starting to tighten and she buries her burning cheeks against the broad darkness of his shirt.

 

“It’s cold,” she offers weakly.

 

Cold indeed, though Rey knows it must be so pathetically clear how much he’s getting to her by- by- by doing nothing but hold her. What a sad, silly-headed thing she has become.

 

He clears his  throat. Her head bounces with the movement.

 

“The winds have been growing steadily all night long,” he says. “They came from the east and now they’re from the other direction. I hope something isn’t blowing in.”

 

Rey hums softly, a  languor starting to overcome her as her husband’s  body heat starts to sink through to her. Then his words reach her and she frown, opening her eyes that she hadn’t  realized she’d closed.

 

“The winds are coming from the west now? That’s… that’s maybe not so good.”

 

This time of year it could mean a  vicious storm. But the skies were bright and clear above them, and even as she says it the steady breeze that had been nudging at her seems to slacken.

 

“We should go back to the camp,” she offers, making no move to pull away.

 

“No. Not yet. We wouldn’t want to wake the guards up.”

 

She laughs softly, cuddling closer. She can only see her husband now in profile, but she can tell that he’s smiling.

 

“Aren’t you angry at them for that? For not doing their job? It could be dangerous out here, and you’re, as you were so quick to point out, you’re the _crown_ _prince._ Just the four of us out here in the wilds where anything could happen.”

 

His smile grows wider. He turns his head partly to hers and Rey’s heart skips a beat as his eyes fall to her lips.

 

“Let them sleep,” he says.

 

His free hand strokes her cheek, his thumb skimming across the fullness of her bottom lip before she reaches out to  catch his palm in her own.

 

“Kylo, we can’t.”

 

Rey isn’t completely sure what she’s denying him, but there’s a voice starting to call out in her head. It’s the echo of her old self,  warning her to break this sweet spell of intimacy before she falls too deeply for a pair of pretty eyes and forgets herself.

 

Kylo must sense the change in her. His smile fades and his had drops. The one around her waist stills from the lazy circles it had  been tickling against her.

 

He doesn’t speak for a few minutes. Neither of them do. Rey breathes and listens to the endless silence  surrounding them. Before she had been married she had lived with Uncle Luke in his small house in the city. It had been a while now since she’d been back to the desert at night. So still. So quiet. So endless.

 

“Like we’re the only people in the entire universe.”

 

She whispers it, that half-formed thought. Kylo takes her hand again, playing with her fingers.

 

“Do you think people can change? Or are we all doomed to only ever be the same?”

 

Rey blinks, running her mind over his question. It wasn’t what she thought he would say. While she’d been having her own lazy musings about the land, Kylo’s thoughts had apparently taken him on a deeper and darker path.

 

It was a good question. One that deserved an honest answer.

 

She threads her fingers through his and the knot in her chest only tightens when he picks her hand up to kiss her wedding ring.

 

“I didn’t used to think so,” she says, her voice quiet as a wisp. “When I was younger I used to think the wicked were wicked and the good were good and that was it. You were one or the other. Now, though… now I’ve changed myself so much. I hardly even recognize myself anymore.”

 

The dresses. The  etiquette. The marriage. That was all just token paperwork. Rey felt like a new woman, and in ways she wasn’t sure if she liked or not.

 

Another push of wind sends her closer. Now Kylo wraps both his arms around her, their legs tangling together. She listens to the steady thunder of his heart until it’s replaced by the rumble of his voice.

 

“You betrayed my trust to my enemies, Rey. I should be angry at you, but I’m not. I would have been before. Before, I would have- you might-” His voice fades for a moment and Rey holds her breath. “It would have gone differently before, Rey. We wouldn’t be here now. You certainly wouldn’t be and I would have tried to drown myself in fleeting comfort.”

 

Rey knows immediately what he’s  referring to. They both have their triggers, it would seem.

 

“Does your harem make you happy?”

 

It was a question she absolutely dreaded asking, but  one she could only hope he’d be as honest with her as she had been with him. He didn’t seem happy. He didn’t seem to care for most of his other wives, but she could be wrong about that. Not that it would matter for a marriage that was never meant to last such as theirs.

 

Still, her heart flutters when he shakes his head.

 

“Once? Fleeting so. Now less with each passing day. Now they just make me feel… empty.”

 

Rey grows still in his arms. Again that voice of warning chimes. She feels like she’s getting dangerously close to reaching an edge. A tipping point where there’s no coming back from.

 

“Is that why you chose me, then?” she asks. “If you’re empty, are you trying to fill yourself with me then?”

 

In the distance comes a noise. A little clatter. Rey frowns at it, but her husband shushes her concerns away with  another chaste kiss to her temple.

 

“Darling, I’m quite sure that’s supposed to be my line to you.”

 

Rey’s frown deepens for a second before she rolls her eyes.

 

“Debauched pervert,” she chides, shaking her head against his lips.

 

He laughs then, a soft, low sound., His joke, though tedious and terrible, offered a welcome break in the tension that had befallen them. Rey smiles despite  herself , snuggling in closer to her husband’s chest

 

This time the silence that spreads between is warm and languid. Kylo’s thumbs rolls against her soothing and sweet. Her eyelids start to drift  heavy and she can both see and feel the rise and fall of his chest even out as sleep starts to lure them both. It’s been such a long few days.  Tortuous at times. These last few hours  had almost made up for them, though. They had gone so well. So wonderfully. And now all that is left is to sleep and face tomorrow with a fresh promise and a second chance.

 

Except sleep wouldn’t come, no matter how much Rey tried to will it’s sweet release to come to her. Her husband had nodded off by now, his grip on her slackening and the softest of rumbles matching every exhale.

 

The winds had stilled and she was warm. The desert was  silent and she was at peace. She could sleep. She was safe.

 

Except that voice in her head only grew louder. It had been warning her all evening not to let her husband steal her  heart. Warning her and all but shouting at her to protect herself. Don’t let him have this part of you, too. Stay strong. Don’t let him have you.

 

As they lay there the words kept looping, chasing away any chance of her catching some badly needed rest.

 

And then another noise. Another crumbling of rock.

 

Rey stiffens. She doesn’t dare raise her head, but every muscle in her body tightens.

 

They’re being watched.

 

The warning’s in her head hadn’t been about her husband at all. She’d just been too carelessly caught up in him  _ again _ to not hear them for what they really were.

 

She’d been wrong this whole time. They weren’t alone out  here after all.

 

Another noise, this time even closer or was this all in her  head ? This time Rey doesn’t hesitate to find out.

 

She places her hand over her husband’s mouth and whispers his name into his ear. Her palm covers his mumble, but his eyes open first slowly then wide as he takes in whatever expression her face was making.

 

“There’s someone coming.” She keeps her voice scarcely above the barest of whispers. “We need to go back to the camp. Now.”

 

His brows frown together. He doesn’t believe her. He doesn’t understand.

 

Then he must hear it too. A  _ clink _ . A sound of unclear origin but one that  distinctly doesn’t belong. It’s close but not hopelessly so. Not yet.

 

She withdraws her  hand and they both look at each other. For a painful moment  Rey almost thinks she can see suspicion in his eyes. Then he nods, his arms uncurling from her now tightly rigid body.

 

“Go,” he whispers.

 

“You’ll-”

 

“Yes.”

 

Rey doesn’t hesitate. She rolls away, flipping first onto her stomach then kicking her feet up under her as leaps to standing. Kylo is one move behind her and Rey risks a look back behind them.

 

There’s something there. Dark. In the shadows of a  boulder. It’s watching them but then it’s gone. She hadn’t blinked. It was there and then it wasn’t.

 

Kylo’s hand grips hers. He has the horse blanket in his other and Rey will berate him for that later. 

 

Now though they run, Rey in the lead and dragging her husband as fast as she can  back towards the camp they should have never left to begin with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cue ominous music? Yeah, let’s cue that ominous music!
> 
>  
> 
> And, as always, find me on tumblr at [ **lost-inthesunlight.tumblr.com**](https://lost-inthesunlight.tumblr.com/) and on twitter at [ **@Ava_Avdal**](https://twitter.com/Ava_Avdal) :)
> 
> Find this week's moodboard [ **HERE**](https://lost-inthesunlight.tumblr.com/post/183851199113/the-path-that-moonbeams-make-chapter-13-read-it)


	14. Drifting Desert Hills (part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy May the Fourth everyone!!!

The night had passed sleeplessly.

When they had gotten back to the uncertain safety of their camp it was undisturbed but the guards were also awake. They had at first claimed innocence to Kylo berating them for sleeping through their shift. However, with enough verbal prodding, they finally had admitted fault and blamed exhaustion instead. Apparently normally an overnight outing for the Crown prince would require a full squadron of guards to assure his safety, not to mention the countless other assistants and attendants to indulge in his every need. 

Going out into the desert with just the four of them was close to unconscionable. Rey had thought little of it yesterday, but after seeing that ghostly apparition she started to doubt the wisdom of their plan.

“Perhaps we should turn back,” she offers, her voice meek with both weariness and wariness. “We’ve already taken a wrong turn. I’m not… I’m not quite sure where we are. Specifically. These hills are not ones I went into often.”

Kylo shakes his head and picks at his cooling breakfast. They hadn't taken much with them in terms of supplies, certainly not of any appealing variety, but Rey had already long finished her own portion. 

When she moves to take his plate from his he catches her hand and holds it.

“It was nothing, Rey. A trick of the nighttime shadows. It was foolish how we reacted. Jumping out of our skins at- at- at probably a bush bending in the breeze or at most a desert critter who was too curious of us.” 

His grip stays steady and Rey sighs, relenting as he drags her down to sit next to him on a woven mat they had brought from Luke’s house. He was wrong, she was sure of that. Someone or something had been out there watching them, and whoever it was hadn’t been afraid that his presence would be known.

“How lost are we?” he asks between mouthfuls of his breakfast. “How far from your old house? I should like to see my wife’s childhood home and I'm sure you have many things to show me of how wicked I am.”

Rey stares at him sidelong. He had been rather morose ever since dawn had first began to brighten. She had said then that they should call their whole trip off, and Kylo’s guards had murmured in agreement as well before falling silent to the sharp look their Prince gave them.

“I think that it’s so be faster to keep going than turn back,” she answers. “These canyons we are in can be a tangle, but I know certain landmarks. We find them and we’ll find my home, but there’s a reason I didn’t come here more than a few times.”

“No garbage worth picking over?”

Kylo sets his plate down and holds onto her hand as she gives an offended sniff and tries to yank it away. He hangs his head, though, his hair falling to block his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I suppose I shouldn’t have said that.”

Him admitting that was progress, Rey reluctantly decides. One of the guards approaches to collect the dishes and offer her a flash of water. For as little as she wants to become so spoiled, she can’t deny that having servants to help break up camp was not entirely unwelcome.

“Indeed you shouldn’t have. You’re very grumpy when you haven’t slept, aren’t you?”

He shakes his head but Rey knows it to be a gesture of agreement. 

“Neither last night for all the stupid of reasons, or the night before for- for our disagreement. Perhaps tonight in your home then I’ll find rest.”

Rey stands then, Kylo holding onto her hand with an outstretched arm before he reluctantly lets go and his arms drifts back. She moves to roll up the sitting rug but the guard beats her to it, tipping his head at her as he and the other finish kitting up the horses.

“There probably won’t be much left,” she warns. “I’m sure it’s been picked over, and enough time has passed that the sands will have gotten in.”

She knows Kylo will complain. It was as far a cry from his lavish quarters as could be imagined. But Rey still longed to see her old world again. A taste of nostalgia that may help to ground her unsteady thoughts.

“There will be water, at least. The old spring behind my house never runs dry, and I’ve hidden it well enough. Four walls, a roof, and water. Compared to some of the subjects of your kingdom, you highness, I was practically living in luxury.”

She had expected another retort, but instead Kylo simply nods this time. He leads her to their waiting horse with his palm against the small of her back and an almost sad purse to his lips.

Truly he’s in a strange mood. Perhaps the visitor from last night had troubled him more than he lets on, or maybe there’s something beyond a lack of sleep that’s weighing at his mind. Either way, Rey makes a promise to herself to try and be the better person. To take her temper for him and try to show the same patience and compassion that Uncle Luke had tried to instill in her from their very first lesson.

The four of them quietly depart, heading deeper into the canyons and further away from the City.

*

They rode as they had before, with the two guards in the lead and Kylo’s arms tight around her waist as they hung back. 

Kylo’s weight was heavy, slumping. The man clearly was exhausted, and even his gropes lacked some of their enthusiasm from the day before.

For the most part he simply held her. Sometimes he would lean in close and kiss her temple or her ear. Rey would look back at him and he’d smile, but his eyes were half lidded today and ringed with darkness and her verbal objection would fade before it ever left her tongue.

Then his hands found hers, on in each, and he squeezed and Rey could match his silence no longer.

“Are you aright?” she finally asks.

It was late morning now and he had barely spoken. Rey was feeling a little more confident about their route, though now it was the weather that was troubling her. A desert storm was most certainly coming in, and they were such unpredictable things that it would be hard to prepare for.

“I had a dream about my mother last night.”

He says it with his mouth muffled against her hair and Rey has to swallow down the sudden tingles that his voice brings to her pulse.

“The Empress?”

It was a strange sort of imbalance to comprehend that her husband’s mother is the Empress. Her husband is her husband for all his countless flaws. The Empress is someone who’s so powerful, so revered that Rey can has to remind herself that she’s really real. That a real woman exists behind her notoriety. The same woman who birthed and raised the man Rey would one day come to marry.

She had expected Kylo to continue. He doesn’t. He sighs deep and low, the sad sound of it humming against the thinner bones at the back of her shoulders. When she looks to him he avoids her gaze to dip his head down until all she can see is the black curtain of his hair.

Rey frowns and fidgets, and occupies herself with scanning for landmarks around them as her husband holds her tighter than ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my GODS I’m so sorry this update is teeny-tiny! I just HAD to get it out on May the Fourth! Some of you may know that I’ve started my own graphic design business and it’s been actually going really well but I’ve been soooooo busy these last few days. I PROMISE PROMISE PROMISE I’ll have the other half of this chapter really soon, I didn’t want to miss out on the fun today!


	15. Drifting Desert Hills (part 2)

“Do you find these hills beautiful?”

 

Even something as innocuous as a question about the land could send a shiver down Rey’s spine when her husband said it to her. Or perhaps it was how he said it, with his lips skimming against the shell of her ear and his breath ticking the side of her face.

 

“I- yes. I do. I love the desert, as much as I also hate it.”

 

She wriggles forward on the saddle and Kylo’s head retracts to rest its weight on her shoulder.

 

“I’m glad to see it now like this. Open and wild and endless. I’m used to only seeing it through the distorted glass of a carriage window or, if I’m very lucky, past the heads of all my men and guards as we travel somewhere.”

 

His hands reach out and pull lightly on the reins, slowing their horse’s pace. Ahead of them the brightly clad guards keep going, following their instructions from the day before to give their master and his wife the most privacy.

 

“Here,” he hands the reins to her so she can control them. “We could stop for a minute a hide in the shadows. I could lay down with my head on your lap and my fingers in my hair and I could spill every secret of the kingdom to your waiting ears.”

 

For a good few paces Rey is completely at a loss for words.

 

“You paint such a vivid picture, dear husband,” she finally manages to say.

 

“Is that a yes then?”

 

Back with his lips to her ear, whispering low. This time, however, Rey knows that he’s doing it deliberately.

 

“Aren’t you afraid I’d tell the Resistance? Surely I haven't gained your confidence yet?”

 

Her grip on the leather straps in her hand tightens as Kylo strums his fingers against her shoulder.

 

“Perhaps I’m setting you up to fail, wife. Have you considered that?”

 

Rey huffs, thoroughly annoyed at herself for falling victim to one of his mind games. She bounces her shoulder, rolling it back and forward until he dislodges himself.

 

“I think I’d rather talk about the desert. Or the weather, perhaps we should talk about that? Maybe that would be a safe enough topic for two newlyweds to indulge in?”

 

His laugh warms her already hot skin and Rey lets got of the reins to adjust the neckline of her dress to cover more of her. She was dressed so stupidly for this, but at least Kylo had given her a black cowl she could drape around herself to match the angle of the sun.

 

“It’s been windy. What does that mean? A storm, or no storm?”

 

Fine. He’s dropping his agenda. Maybe the weather was safe enough.

 

“This time of year it could be rain or wind, but something is coming in for sure. I can’t say how long it will be until it finds us, but if we can’t make it to my old home by nightfall let’s try and pick a spot less exposed.”

 

Kylo hums and his hands wrap themselves around her waist again. Rey frowns and tries her best to ignore him. She clicks her tongue, giving the reins a quick upward flick and their horse picks up the pace to match its comrades now a good ways ahead of them.

 

“Why don’t you travel more?” she asks. “You speak like you would like to, and travel on different terms. You ave all the means in the world to do so, so why don’t you?”

 

It’s too easy to picture her husband on horseback, leading his own group rather than being surrounded by them. He would probably be very proud, his chest puffed out and an expression of pure arrogance decorating his face.

 

“Because of my father,” he answers. “I don’t want to end up like him.”

 

Kylo’s only spoken of his family a few times, and rarely with anything too revealing about his sentiment. Rey itches to ask him more. To press him about his dream which apparently troubled him greatly. However, if she did that, he would be well within his rights to ask the same manner of questions to her.

 

“You father… he traveled a lot? You said he did. That he- er-”

 

How to tactfully repeat the painful story he had shared with her? Rey isn’t sure, and Kylo inhales deeply, his chest pressing against her back.

 

“He abandoned my mother and I. Often. Too many times to count. Oh, he would have excuses sometimes. Other times not, but when he felt like giving us the dignity of a lie he would always say he was called away by _business_ and would have to travel to some faraway land.”

 

Rey stares at the steepening hills in silence as their group winds along the poorly marked trail. They’re heading in the right direction, she thinks. It’s very quiet, though. 

 

“Wanderlust. It can be a very melancholy thing.”

 

Kylo hums in agreement.

 

“Indeed, Rey. And I also have my duty. Sometimes I want nothing more than to be like you and have nothing holding me back.”

 

Rey flinches from that, but she tries to hide it. When she glances over her shoulder Kylo is staring straight up at the sky.

 

“Duty?” she repeats. “I’m surprised to hear you speak of duty. You seemed to have so little regard for it before.”

 

Truthfully she has little idea what her husband spends his day doing, but he can’t have ever taken his duty to his kingdom too seriously or so much of what has transpired would have been avoided.

 

“People watch me all the time,” he says. “They judge me. When I become emperor the scrutiny will be immense. I’m not sure how I’ll manage to overcome it. Whatever freedoms I have now will be stripped away.”

 

Rey has to literally bite her tongue. What a spoiled little rich boy he is. She doesn’t doubt that his life has its challenges, but how could he be so foolish to say these things to her?

 

Then Master Luke’s words come back to her. Compassion. It had been one of her central lessons to her. Have compassion even to those who are such entitled, thoughtless little pricks they would dare to think their troubles are worth whining about.

 

Reluctantly she reaches out and pats his hand. There. That’s comfort. Compassion. She’s doing it.

 

“You won’t be emperor for a long time yet, husband. Plenty of years ahead of you to overcome the massive challenges that come with a life of comfort and leisure.”

 

Kylo’s hands withdraw from under her own. His heat leaves her back as well, but there are limits to how far he can retreat from her barb.

 

“Run away with me.”

 

Gods he’s in a strange mood. Yesterday he could hardly stop from touching her and now he’s- well, he’s _clingy_ , if not so overtly affectionate.

 

“Run away? I thought that’s what we were doing right now, husband? I doubt you sent word to the palace of our trip into the desert. No doubt there are frenzy besides themselves at you going missing.”

 

Kylo makes a sound that is either a hum or a grunt, but Rey refuses to look back at him. Ahead there’s another fork in the road and she’d been keeping them to the more worn trails but now the choice seems less clear.

 

“When I told my men to fetch water for our trip I also ordered them to send notice to the palace that I would be going away for a few days. They won’t be looking for us long enough for us to get a good head start. _Run away with me._ ”

 

“Kylo-”

 

“Further. Anywhere. Show me your home then shows me what lies beyond the next hill then the next a hundred after that. Let’s run where no one could ever find us. Where no one knows who I am or expects anything of me. You used to have that life, Rey. Surely you must miss it?”

 

Rey scoffs. Their guards are waiting at the crossing and she wonders how much of that they just heard.

 

“To… to the right. Yes. To the right.”

 

She waits until they pull far enough ahead that she can whisper back at Kylo.

 

“Do whatever I want, you mean? Is that really what you think my old life was like?”

 

He shrugs. Rey wants to slap him for that.

 

“Isn’t it, though?”

 

Rey twists in her seat to glare back to him.

 

“It was _hard_ , Kylo. It was all I could do not to starve to death. When we get to my home I'm putting you to work. I won’t lift a finger. You can bring in the water and clear out the dirt and worry about he snakes and all the thousands of other troubles I had to live through _every single day_ while you were up in your palace marrying any woman that passed your line of sight.”

 

Their horse whinnies, sensing the impending argument of its riders. With a sneer Rey turns away from him, not wanting to stand looking at her husband’s clueless, blank face for a moment more. 

 

They continue the net few minutes in silence. An acrimonious silence from Rey’s end, though her husband must sense this because he keeps both his thoughts and his hands to himself.

 

Then he has to ruin their brief piece by speaking again once they round the net bend of the road.

 

“I can make it up to you, Rey. I have plenty of money with me. We run away together and you can have all that. Not a finger lifted. It doesn’t have to be forever, if that’s your worry. The guards have families. Or maybe not, I don’t actually know them. But let us all have a grand adventure. Let’s cross the desert and see the ocean beyond. I’ll come back a changed man. You gave me thirty days of your life, Rey, let’s not waste them at the palace.”

 

“Gods, don’t remind me. How much longer do I have?”

 

His weight presses against her again. Rey rolls her eyes, scowling at the now lightly streaking clouds high above them. A storm it will definitely be, then.

 

“Long enough, Rey. Just think about it. Please. Now tell me about these hills. Be my guide. You said you never came here often. Why not? All the wrecks of days gone by already been picked to their bones?”

 

Rey sighs and tries to remember the last time she was here. Perhaps a decade or not quite? 

 

Which brings her right back to something that had been troubling the backs of her thoughts all day long.

 

“There was never was anything ere to pick over,” she says. “Only just a few houses if you could call them that. The old empire and then the new traders wouldn’t come through this way because the hills would slow them down. I chose this route so we wouldn't be seen by so many, but it feels like we haven't been seen at all since last night. Do you find that strange?”

 

Kylo pauses and matches her look from one side of the road to the other. It’s been blown over with sand for a while now and the only prints on the ground are there own.

 

“Should there be more here then?”

 

“Yes. Or- or maybe not. If the water’s shifted and these hills have gone dry...”

 

They still should have met someone. Or at least seen signs of someones. If the homesteaders had move on then others like outlaws were not unknown to hide out in these hills that were just a days ride from the city.

 

“Up there,” Rey points to a tall hill with a steep but possible-looking slope to it. “Let’s go up there and get a vantage on some higher ground.”

 

Kylo snaps the reins to motion the horse to catch up to the guards before eh whispers right next to her ear like eh always does when he wants to be an ass.

 

“But I thought you had the higher ground already, darling?”

 

Rey doesn’t bother to dignify him with an answer. She slaps their horse on its shoulder, breaking it out into an abrupt run as she guides it towards that hill.

 

*

 

 

“There it is. The ocean.”

 

Kylo’s voice holds a tone of almost reverence, as if he’s giving a grand proclamation to a spellbound audience. Rey side-eyes him, squinting hard at the mid-day sun to see what she already knows can’t be seen.

 

“Kylo… the ocean is hundreds of kilometers that way. We can’t see it.”

 

Perhaps the sun and heat has gotten to him? The pampered prince, unable to withstand even a full day in the elements and out of his comforts.

 

Her husbands chests deflates noticeably. He threads his fingers through his unruly hair and sweeps it back from his face. Rey fights an odd impulse to be jealous of his hand for that.

 

“Yes, wife, I know that. I meant it more like _there_ is the ocean. Over there in that direction. I haven’t seen it for so long, have you ever?”

 

Rey shakes her head and steps back to stand in his shadow. The shadeless hilltop offered them a spectacular panorama of how utterly lost they had become by her poor guidance.

 

“Never. The sands are my ocean. Stretching as far as the eye can see.”

 

These hills formed a foothold for a craggy, sharp line of mountains to the west and a seemingly endless span of rolling dunes to the right. Behind them lay the city, now a dark and distant shape on the rear horizon. Somewhere in front of them was both her old hut and, far far beyond that, the port city that made for the edges of the Alderaan Kingdom.

 

“That’s where my mother went when she sailed abroad so many months ago. You knew that though, didn’t you?”

 

Rey frowns at him. She’d been chewing on the ends of her hair, an old nervous habit she’d had since a child. It was part of the reason why she used to keep her hair tightly up and back, though the reasons why she feels rather on edge now alludes her as much as her husband’s question.

 

“I don’t understand,” she answers.

 

Kylo turns to face her then, his height looming over her. Rey’s frown deepens and she crosses her arms tightly over her chest.

 

“What?” she snaps. “What is it now?”

 

“My mother’s and my relationship is an uneasy one, but you knew that too, don’t you? What were the last words she said to me before she left abroad? Would they come as a surprise to you, or have you been told that by your allies as well?”

 

Rey takes a step back. Kylo matches her. She looks over to the guards who are hovering nearby, one on horseback and the other staring at the ground. Both pretending not to be listening in.

 

“Kylo, if I’m being accused of something, speak plainly. Out with it or I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

 

“What did the Resistance say about Leia?”

 

Leia. His mother. The Empress. Rey thinks back hard to her clandestine meetings with them, but returns to the present largely empty-handed.

 

“They said that she had sent you some letter. Some bloody letter that is so terribly important. Beyond that I know nothing.”

 

Kylo leans in, either trying to intimidate her or kiss her. If it’s the latter-

 

“Are you sure?”

 

He glares down at her and Rey glares up right back.

 

“Husband.”

 

“ _Wife_.”

 

He catches her chin. Rey tenses her jaw, her eyes narrowing even more as she all but dares him to try it and see what happens next.

 

Then he turns and steps away, a sharp tension clear with the set of his shoulders and the tightness of his step as he walks to the edge of their looking point.

 

“Do you know our way now, Rey? Have you found the route?”

 

Oh what in all the heavens-

 

Nevermind. Forget it. Forget _him_.

 

“More or less. We need to head straight south, but it 

will be very easy to get turned about again in these canyons once we get down into them. Once we get out in the open, though, I should be able to find us home quickly.”

 

The back of Kylo’s head tips to one side. She can hear his annoyed-sounding exhale even from several paces away.

 

_Home_.

 

A force of old habit. Rey doesn’t have a home anymore, if she ever did to begin with.

 

“Do you see that dark cloud over there?”

 

Rey points westward where a shadow is growing on the horizon above the towering peaks.

 

Kylo clears his throat as she comes to stand next to him.

 

“It’s a storm,” she answers to herself. “Dust storm or rain storm. Oftentimes they stay caught in the mountains but sometimes… well, if it comes down and hits us it would be best if we’re indoors and can stow ourselves away until it passes. Oftentimes there’s more than one, too. Could be for days.”

 

What Rey was trying to warn him was that coming out ere so unprepared was a fool’s task indeed. They should have stayed in the city. Stayed in the miserable, bloody palace. He should have told her no when she demanded he come out here yesterday, and told her yes again when she told them to return to the city this morning.

 

When Kylo turns to her he’s smiling, but ti’s not his nice sort of smile. It’s the other one.

 

“Lead on, my dear wife. My men and I are at your complete disposal no matter where you should choose to take us.”

 

He extends a bent arm to her and Rey pushes it aside as she walks past him.

 

“Oh whatever that bloody means.”

 

She draws herself up onto their horse, once again ignoring her husband’s attempts to reach out to her. 

 

*

 

By mid afternoon the desert sands had started to lash at them with the rising winds.

 

A storm was coming in. Rey knew the signs as sure as she knew anything. They weren’t so far by distance from her home anymore, she’d managed to get them back on track. Still, it was a slow route ahead, and one that would take them a good few hours even under ideal conditions.

 

Ahead of them one of the guards curses as his horse starts to fret, stalling and stuttering in its forward progress.

 

“They’re getting scared,” Kylo says.

 

“Well perhaps you should have hired better.”

 

The further their ill-considered journey progresses, the more Rey realizes that she only has herself to blame for the stupidity of the endeavor. Herself and absolutely, totally her husband for being such an enigmatic ass. The two bumbling inept guards were only a footnote to Rey’s flowering crabby mood as the winds whip sand into her eyes and sting at her skin.

 

“I meant the horses, Rey. Not my guards.”

 

“Oh.”

 

They were in the foothills of the foothills at least. More open space for the winds to grow, but at least the fear of getting caught in a slot canyon had ebbed back.

 

And then she hears it.

 

Help.

 

Kylo’s head whips to the side, his arms around her tightening.

 

“Did you-”

 

Help!

 

A child’s voice. The first voice other than the four of theirs. In the middle of the desert. In the beginning of a storm. This didn’t sit right with Rey. Not at all.

 

“Help me please!”

 

The winds are picking up dust along with the sands, and visibility is getting worse by the moment. A small shape can be seen off to the side. It’s running for them and Rey sucks in a breath only to cough all the sand back out.

 

“Stop men!” Kylo cries out. 

 

He yanks hard on the reins and their horse rears up, already badly spooked by the eminent onslaught. Ahead of them their guards are having similar problems, and the whole traveling party comes to an uneasy halt as a small and terrified boy runs up to them.

 

“Gods! What are you doing out here?”

 

Before Rey can stop him, Kylo grips the reins into her hands and leaps off their horse. The abrupt motion scares the poor beast even further, and Rey spends the next few moments trying to soothe it and keep it from breaking out into a panicked run with her still on top of it.

 

“D-D-Desmond,” the seemingly fear-stricken child says. “My parents- I don’t know where they are. Please help me! Don’t leave me out here!”

 

The boy’s voice rises with each syllable. Kylo is kneeling next to him, gripping his small shoulders as he tries to calm him.

 

Rey knows what this is. Beyond the shadow of a doubt.

 

How many times was she asked to do this very thing? How many times had some stranger approached her younger, desperate self and told her ‘how hungry are you for a portion? Just let yourself be seen and have a good cry for us. We’ll take care of all the rest. You’ll sleep with a full tummy and easy dreams tonight, child. We’ll tell you when to look away.’

 

“Kylo.”

 

Her voice barely carries as the winds pick up. Rey thinks she knows where her home is now, but this- this _innocent_.

 

“Where did you last see them?” her idiot husband asks. “Were they alright? Had they been in an accident?”

 

Gods! It’s like he’s literally playing into their script!

 

“Kylo! We need to go! Leave the wretch where he is!”

 

All three of them, her husband and the two guards, snap their attention back to her to gape in open-mouthed astonishment. Rey hopes they get a tongue full of sand. The boy is the only one who doesn’t seem appalled by her heartless words. His small face scrunches into a growl for just a second, just a flicker, before turning back into the wide-eyed tears of an angel as Kylo turns his attention back to him.

 

“Lad, it’s not safe out here. Will you come with us? Please. We can help you.”

 

Oh where in the bloody hells did her selfish prick of a husband’s altruistic streak suddenly come from?

 

“Ma-mama and papa-”

 

“We will look for them as we go. Please, lad, come sit with-”

 

Kylo looks over his shoulder at Rey. Whatever expression her face must be making makes him visibly recoil. He dares to look _aghast_ at her, but he quickly recovers so as not to scare the poor little lost lamb in his arms.

 

“You’ll sit with one of my guards. They are the best in all my kingdom. All of our eyes shall be looking for your parents and we’ll find and take them with us too.”

 

If Rey didn’t have to keep both hands so tight on the reins to control her steed, she would have sparred one to face-palm. All _his_ kingdom. The karking fool. 

 

The child nods and Kylo picks him up in his arms to bring him to the closer of the two guards. Over her husband’s shoulder the boy looks at her. There’s not a single tear streaking down on his dusty face.

 

When Kylo returns to her, joining her back on the saddle with a disapproving huff, it takes a great deal of Rey’s patience not to throw him off again.

 

Rey wanted to wring his neck. But first she had to get them - _all_ of them- out of this storm alive.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Revenge of the Fifth! This is the SECOND half of yesterday’s micro-chapter. Put ‘em together and you’ve got the proper thing!
> 
> And I’m so terribly sorry that I’m behind on answering your lovely reviews! Please PLEASE keep reviewing, you nourish me and I love each and every review I get! I’ll focus get back up to date, I pretty-please promise, this has just been such a crazy few days for me. Feed the hungry author, kindly. <3<3<3


	16. Just What Did You Think Was Going to Happen?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where our team of four-reluctantly-turned-five discover just how much of a Capitol Bitch the desert can really be.

The storm was getting worse by the moment.

 

Rey had known it was coming, the skies had been telling her that since they left the city, but she hadn’t expected it to be _this_ bad. Clearly these last few years of domestication with Luke had dulled her survival senses.

 

“Hold steady! Don’t let us get separated!”

 

Kylo shouts it at his men from over her shoulder and Rey flinches as her ears ring. The two guards are both struggling with their horses, the beasts starting to scare as the winds howl louder and louder. Kylo is keeping their own steed more steady, and he clearly has much more experience so she does her best to simply not get in his way. Before this Rey had only ever ridden on horseback but a few times and she doesn’t doubt she’d have be bucked off by now if it wasn’t for Kylo’s firm grip on the reins.

 

“Easy. _Easy_.”

 

Their horse whinnies. Rey can feel its muscles flexing underneath her. If it breaks free-

 

“Are we near your home?” Kylo has to almost shout it for her to hear him clearly. “Please say we are.”

 

A sudden gust of even stronger wind sends rocks scattering across their path, Rey grips onto the horn of the saddle and Kylo tightens his arms around her.

 

Are they near, though? Rey’s not sure. She’s starting to think she recognizes a few things, but with so much dust flying everywhere it’s hard to say for sure.

 

“Left now!” Rey calls out after the guards.

 

This will take them through a narrow slot canyon which should give a small break in the wind. Rey almost thinks that this particular canyon looks familiar. Can almost picture her younger self scaling its walls at one point in the long past. If she’s right, it will shave off an hour or more of their passage, but going through it now carries with it the risk of flash floods and rockfall. 

 

That’s just one of the many concerns on Rey’s mind, though. That boy. That small, deceptive child. He’s trouble. She knows it in her bones. The very last thing she wants is to show him right to their doorstep.

 

“Kylo.” She has to twist backwards to say it right into his ear so he alone can hear her. “The child. We’ll find a place and we’ll leave him. You have to trust me on this.”

 

The look her husband gives her makes her feel somewhere far beyond wretched.

 

“Rey, he’s _alone_. He needs our help. What you’re saying is tantamount to murder.”

 

Rey had been wrong. The slot canyon is even worse. The winds are now focused, siphoned down the narrow passage. She has to draw her shawl up around her face to be able to even breathe. Ahead of them she can barely see the red tunics of their guards.

 

“Faster,” she tells him. “We have to get out of here. I’d thought it was a shortcut but this is suicide to stay.”

 

The argument of the boy’s fate is dropped, though Rey’s not going to let it go for too long. Kylo tells her to hold on tight. She folds over the saddle, the only thing she has to grip, and closes her eyes as Kylo lets their steed finally break out into a run. 

 

The winds sting at every exposed area of her skin. Rey coughs through her scarf, her teeth clacking together with each pounding gallop as their horse now runs in a free panic. If it were to rear up now they would both be thrown off and, at best, breaks their necks instantly.

 

Kylo shouts something and Rey can barely hear him. One of the guards shouts back and a loud crackle of falling rocks sends their horse racing faster still. Now it’s all Rey can do to hang on and, when she finally forces her eyes open a crack, all she can see is dust and sand flying, darkening the air around them so it feels more like twilight than midday.

 

“ _Kylo_.”

 

She doesn’t know what she’s asking for or if he even hears her.

 

Another shout, this time much sharper. One of the guards has fallen. She sees his red coat from just the corner of her eye as they race past him.

 

Kylo cries out in a curse and yanks hard on the reins, trying in vain to stop their horse and go back for him. Not a chance. The beast they’re on is running blind with fear and in the seconds the guard – whether he was alive or dead- is so far behind them that he’s lost to the storm.

 

“Hold on!”

 

Kylo shouts it but Rey screams as she feels them jump. Their horse must have leapt over something because the three of them are airborn for a moment before they come crashing down. The impact is almost enough to knock Rey off but Kylo catches her, one of his arms grabbing around her waist and hauling her back up. He squeezes her so tight she can feel her ribs protest, but there’s a literal light at the end of the tunnel.

 

_ Just a little more. You don’t have to breathe for just a little more. _

 

The mantra keeps Rey going. She’s seen herself through a lot by just repeating a little more, she can take almost anything for just a little more. The whole saddle rig is starting to twist, and if their breakneck pace had kept on for much longer they would both have surely fallen one way or another. As it is now Rey has to almost throttle their poor horse, her arms squeezing as tightly around what she can reach of its neck as Kylo is gripping about her waist. Finally the narrow rock walls of the slot canyon open up, sending them spilling out into a new area of the desert.

 

No. Not a new one. She knows this place.

 

“I-” 

 

Rey has to cough up several thick and gritty lung fulls of sand before she can speak. She pries at Kylo’s hands as their pace slackens, their horse now having run itself into near exhaustion. Ahead of them is their other guard, and Rey frowns as she sees the little dark haired boy having his own coughing fit on the saddle in front of him. No sign of the third horse.

 

“Are you alright?”

 

Kylo’s voice is as windswept as the land around them and Rey nods. They’re not out of the danger yet, though. Not by a long shot. Even if they’re in the open desert now the air is still thicker than smoke. Visibility is just a few meters at best and all around them the air seems to crackle and change.

 

“We’re in the eye of the storm now,” she wheezes. Kylo presses a flask of water into her trembling hands. When she’s downed a few gulps he hands it over to a similarly disheveled guard, his once bright outer coat now a murky grey from all the dirt.

 

“Did we almost die?” the man asks. “My friend, he- I don’t know what happened. His horse was right next to me and then he shouted. I didn’t see what happened but suddenly he was behind me and then he was gone.”

 

“How long do we have, Rey?” Kylo asks. “We have to go back. If he’s still alive he’s no doubt injured.”

 

Rey looks over her shoulder at the canyon. It looms behind them as a dark slit in the rock. She shakes her head. Already the winds are starting to pick up again.

 

“There’s no time. We have to keep going.” 

 

Her shoulders slump with the grimness of the truth. In nearly any other time she wouldn't leave a man to die such a miserable end, but they can do him no good if they all share in his fate by going back there into that deathly canyon.

 

Both Kylo and the guard look at each other. Rey knows they’re weighing her statement, trying to decide if they should follow in her lead when it was her poor judgment that got them into this chaos to begin with. The child avoids her eyes. He’s dirty, filthy even, and very slight for what she would assume to be his age. It’s hard not to feel pity for him, for that was she herself not so long ago.

 

“Desmond,” Rey carefully approaches the other horse once Kylo helps her down to quickly adjust their saddle. “You said that was your name. What are you really doing out here? Who put you up to this?”

 

“Just leave him be, Rey. Please.” 

 

Kylo calls it out but Rey ignores him. Tries to ignore the judgmental look in the eyes of their remaining guard or the way his arm draws the boy closer.

 

“Mama and papa-”

 

“Shut it. We’re not going to leave you out here to die, but don’t think for a minute I don’t know what you are. If you tell us what waits for us, we can help you.”

 

It’s a stupid bargain, but Rey can’t help herself. When she had been his age she had been made this same offer. She had said no then and gone hungry for more than the next week. 

 

The child shakes his head sharply and cringes back, curling up even more around himself.

 

“Rey, _please_. The lad has been through enough.”

 

She frowns, looking at the boy’s feet. He’s wearing new shoes. She spent most of her youth either barefoot or with whatever ill fitting and mismatched pair she could be so lucky to scavenge.

 

Their horse whimpers again, not happy to be mounted buy Kylo. The winds are stinging again, signaling the closing door to their brief reprieve from the storm.

 

“Fine then.”

 

Rey takes Kylo’s extended hand and lets him drag her up. If the others don’t believe her, well then… they’ll just have to see for themselves. Perhaps, with a change of tactics and a little kindness, she might be able to sway the child to their side?

 

“We will keep to the right of this rock cliff,” she says. “Even if the storm picks up again so long as we have it to our left we won’t get lost.”

 

Provided their horses don’t panic again. it’s not far now, though. Rey had been right before. They aren’t far from her old home. The slot canyon had been a torturous ordeal, but it may have been the only thing that saved them from all perishing to the sands.

 

“We’ll go look for him as soon as the storm passes,” Rey tells the other guard. “It should break before evening, though there’s likely to be another round or two throughout the night.”

 

“And the boy’s parents,” Kylo adds. “We’ll look for them.”

 

The small, dark head perks up at that. Rey rolls her eyes, drawing her shawl across the lower half of her face again as the air begins to become clogged with fresh dust.

 

“Perhaps his parents will _happen_ to find us,” she mutters.

 

Talking is becoming too hard and arguing is pointless. Rey gives in directs them along the way. It’s hard to see and growing harder as the winds start to howl. Even after these three long years, however, Rey knows this area well. The bend in the trail. The big boulder. A darker spot of ground where, if she was truly desperate, she could dig her height deep and find water.

 

“It won’t be long now.”

 

Rey tells it as much to her husband and her guard as she does to herself.

 

*

 

Shockingly, an ambush _hadn’t_ been waiting when they crossed into the old stone circle that made the outside wall of her childhood home.

 

The whole place was in bad shape. Sands had blown deep and it takes a combined effort between her and Kylo to force open the front door. The guard was walking down their horses then tying them up at the old shed Rey had used to use to store her bulkier scavengings. She was greatly reluctant to let the little brat stay with him, but she also hardly wanted him too close to her and Kylo as they go through her old house.

 

Inside was a sobering experience. Obviously it had been looted through, but very little was taken.

 

“I guess I really didn’t have much worth anything.”

 

She picks up an old porcelain vase that now lies broken on the sand covered floor. It had little real value, but had been one of her favorites. If she had been so lucky as to find a flower, that’s where she would keep it until it wilted and she would press it.

 

“Oh look at this,” Kylo picks something up from a dirty corner of the room. “How nice.”

 

It’s her old Rebellion doll. The look he gives her when she snatches it back from his is sharply pointed.

 

“It wasn’t like that,” she answers. “I’d found some scraps. I made them into whatever the scraps happened to make best.”

 

“ _I’m sure_. So we’re staying here tonight? Here with all the dirt and the snakes and the scorpions?”

 

He kicks at the floor and a large cloud of dust billows up.

 

“You’re more than welcome to stay outside. The storm should be fully cleared in an hour, I won’t stop you from stepping out early.”

 

Rey pushes past him into the rear room. Her old bedroom. The mattress has been stripped away but the frame of her bed is still there. She can lay her bedroll out on that, but her rude husband wasn’t wrong about the snakes and scorpions.

 

“Rey? What in- _Rey!_ ”

 

She rolls her eyes, oh what now?

 

“Kylo, if you’re not going to-”

 

“The horses are gone!”

 

Rey blinks at the strange statement for a moment. Then the words hit home and she runs, _runs_ out of the bedroom to the front door. 

 

Just like he’d said. No horses. No guard. No boy. They couldn’t have been in the house for more than ten minutes, but clearly ten minutes too long.

 

“That- that-”

 

“Rey. The horses are gone. How are the horses gone?”

 

“That… was _fast_.”

 

Rey almost is a little impressed. The kid has technique. Obviously not working alone. Was the guard in on it, then? Or are there eyes watching them right now?

 

“Kylo, we need to go back inside. Now.”

 

She tugs on his sleeve. He pulls away and steps forward further out into the open. Rey shrinks back into the doorway, half expecting a volley of arrows to descend upon her idiot husband and make her a widow.

 

Nothing. Just fading winds and shifting sands. It seems they’re alone out here, at least for the moment. And now they’re stranded. How lovely. Coming out to the desert really was a foolish idea after all, wasn’t it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another shorter chapter but this one gets them in place and I wanted to start the events at Rey’s old home on its own chapter. And don’t worry, no horses were hurt in the backstages of this story, lol. The redshirts on the other hand… well lets just say that a redshirt has a special, unique cycle they go through in their role. They’ve now fulfilled their purpose, and it’s only natural.
> 
> Next chapter:  
> Kylo and Rey have a moment of peace together that’s of course going to be rather short-lived!
> 
> I’m also going away on vacation and I won’t be posting or replying to comments (going off the grid) until the 27th. Your comments give me life, so please don’t think I’m ignoring y'all! Now I gotta get back to work, got 2 more fanfics I want to post before our bus leaves this afternoon.
> 
>  
> 
> And, as always, find me on tumblr at [ **lost-inthesunlight.tumblr.com**](https://lost-inthesunlight.tumblr.com/) and on twitter at [ **@Ava_Avdal**](https://twitter.com/Ava_Avdal) :)
> 
> Find this week's moodboard (a very lovely one, if I don't say so myself ;) [ **HERE**](https://lost-inthesunlight.tumblr.com/post/184842631118/updating-3-fanfics-today-because-im-about-to-go)


	17. Decisions Made Under Duress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Rey and Kylo begin a new step of The Heroes Journey.

“The storm looks like it will come and go all night.”

 

A splash of water comes from behind her but Rey refuses to look back. Not even when a few drops- flicked by a rude hand no doubt- fall across the back of her bare neck.

 

“Is that normal? For it to come and go like this?”

 

Another splash and Rey frowns, staring at the darkening hills around them. They had only set the water catchers out by her spring for the hour since the guard and desert rat had disappeared with their horses. Just one hour and already it seems like her husband was going to waste every drop of precious fluid on his ‘nightly bath’ rather than fill up their stores for tomorrow.

 

Tomorrow.

 

Tomorrow seems so far away now, but Rey knows it will come like it always does. Their problems haven’t left them along with the guards and horses. No, they’ve only just started, haven’t they?

 

“Rey?”

 

Wet fingers glide along her exposed upper back and Rey squeaks and scampers out of reach. She had bathed first upon Kylo’s prompting insistence. Hers had been a quick and perfunctory splashing off of the sandstorm dust, and her husband had only somewhat honestly kept his promise to give her privacy during her ablutions.

 

“Um.” Kylo was naked behind her. Rey knew this. She wasn’t looking. Maybe was curious. Maybe. “The storm. Yes.”

 

That’s what they had been talking about. Too easy to get distracted around naked marriage proximity.

 

More splashing and Rey clears her throat and squishes her still-wet toes against the muddy silt she’s standing on. Her spring was close to her house, but the trail badly overgrown. The wispy desert grass and briers were probably the only thing that had kept prying eyes from discovering her secret and moving into the abandoned homestead themselves.

 

“Sometimes sand storms happen like this,” she says, “but not this time of year. It’s more of a mid-summer event when the winds begin to shift from the south to westward bound.”

 

The splashing stops and she extends the other sheet out behind her for him to dry himself with. Kylo’s hand lingers a moment long on hers before he takes it.

 

“Tomorrow morning then?” he asks. “Shall we set out immediately? I would like to, before any more troubles befall us, but do you think the weather will clear and hold? You’re the expert here, Darling Wife. I’ll be relying heavily on your judgment.”

 

The hills had been too quiet. Rey had seen shadows in the sand. They had been stormed, ambushed, lost one and maybe lost another.

 

Yet, despite all that, now her husband _still_ wants to go on his little adventure. Cross the sands and reach the coast. No more troubles. None at all. He makes it sound so easy.

 

The worst part of all of that was that Rey can’t tell if Kylo’s being condescending to her or not with his claim to belief in her.

 

“You know we should go back to the Palace,” she addresses the rock walls surrounding them. “That’s not _my_ judgment, My Lord, but rather the verdict of common sense.”

 

“Well I don’t want to.”

 

Rey rolls her eyes. Looks over her shoulder to shoot her childish spouse a pointed glare then quickly looks back. He wasn’t dressed yet, wearing naught but a far too-knowing smile.

 

“Lord Kylo, Prince of Alderaan,” she addresses. Gods he sounds like a prat when she says his full name, doesn’t he? “You will go back to the palace and abandon every part oft his stupid notion to go across the desert. That is my judgment for you.”

 

Not just crossing a part of the desert. Not for _her_ husband. That would have been far too simple an impossible task. What he means is to nearly cross the damned thing in its entirety.

 

“Give up?”Kylo repeats. “Rey? Darling? Not a chance.”

 

His voice is close and low in her ear and now Rey knows clearly that now he really is just riling her up.

 

“It’s too dangerous.”

 

Losing argument and she knows it, but she has to try. A bare arm reaches past her to pick up her little basket of soap and washrag. Rey could fight him so he wouldn’t stupidly be carrying something she could easily do herself, but… but he’s naked. Naked and will win every argument, which is so obviously why he’s choosing to pick this one now.

 

“Rey. Say yes.”

 

She turns to the side. His other arm- also bare and glistening with wasteful water- extends to trap her. She can’t even look back at him like this, the karker.

 

“Yes? Yes to what? To… to agreeing to somehow travel three hundred kilometers at least across the desert? Never mind that we have no camels or horses? Hardly any food or water? Did you forget that part, Kylo? Or was it the fact that you’re The Prince, not just A Prince, as well?”

 

She reaches for his bathing basket to smack him with it but he holds on, resulting in a childish tug of war before Rey stomps on his bare foot with her own.

 

“We’ll find a way. I don’t want to go back to the palace. Come with me.”

 

“Why is this so bloody important to you?”

 

He retreats a step when she makes another pounding attempt on his toes and changes his tactics.

 

“It’s getting dark, darling, do come in soon.”

 

She hears his steps push against the sands, padding his way back to her hut. Only when he sounds a safe distance away does she risk a peek back.

 

The towel is draped over his shoulders and he struts away like a man without a care in the world. Even his winking backside seems to have an arrogant lilt.

 

Rey waits until he’s disappeared inside before burying her face in her hands and giving in to a silent scream.

 

She’s already lost this fight, hasn’t she?

 

*

 

The winds started to howl again once the sun had set down.

 

Rey was actually relieved about that. The storm outside was a nasty one, that’s for sure, but it wasn’t without it’s silver linings. Though her humble shack was as far a cry from the sumptuous marble walls of the palace as she could imagine, at least they weren’t outside huddled behind a rock tonight. There was that, at least. And even losing their horses was not completely and utterly horrid, though it came close. She didn’t know how the animals would have faired during the storm, but now they were someone else’s trouble to manage.

 

“And no one will be able to ambush us again, not in a storm like this.”

 

Kylo looks up from scowling at the salty broth she had made them for dinner. He blinks, then catches on to her random line of thought impressively quickly.

 

“The poor lost boy. You still think he holds ill will to us?”

 

Rey picks up a spoonful of her soup and flicks it at her husband’s forehead. He dodges with a raised eyebrow.

 

“Kylo, a blind infant could have seen through that wretch’s sorry tale. No doubt we will have to cross paths with his _caretakers_ if we really are to go through the desert, so that’s yet another reason to forget the whole notion and simply go back to where you belong.”

 

Kylo pats the surface of the soup with his spoon, but doesn’t eat any more. He truly must have been a difficult child. Just jerky and water, nothing too troubling surely?

 

“Where _we_ belong, dear wife. You smartly married into money. It’s your home as well as mine now.”

 

He catches her hand in his own before she can douse him again.

 

“As if I had a say in that,” Rey mutters, trying to ignore the decidedly unignorable way his thumb rolls over her knuckles in circles. “Now we’re here. Inside, and clean. Er. Clean _er_. So no more excuses from you. Tell me about the ocean. Tell me about the port and why you’re so hell bent on dragging us both to our deaths to get there.”

 

Kylo’s hand retreats then. He watches her for a long moment, and Rey gets the distinct impression that he’s waiting for _her_ to answer her own question.

 

“Kylo-”

 

“My mother is returning to Alderaan.”

 

Rey raises her eyebrows and waits for him to elaborate. H doesn’t and she slowly slides her hand back to her side.

 

“Returning? The Empress?”

 

Kylo doesn’t talk often about his mother, though now in the last few days more so than ever before. The Empress was returning? To govern Alderaan herself or… or to pass the reins on to her son, perhaps?

 

“I-” The social mores that Nevan had tried to instill in her would dictate she responds with a pleasantry. An ‘oh how nice’ or some such nonsense. But the rather serious expression her husband's giving her now as he watches her wheels turn bears warning that this must truly be a touchy subject indeed.

 

“I don’t understand,” Rey finally says. “Aren’t you happy about that? The Empress has been away for a very long time. She’s your _mother_ , surely you’ve missed her?”

 

Kylo’s expression tightens. He turns his attention to the chipped drink mug in front of him, tipping his had from one side to another before replying.

 

‘Miss her? Yes. But I don’t know if… Well, I told you how, when we parted, it was on very poor terms. I’m afraid, Rey. Afraid of what will happen when she gets back.”

 

This all has something to do with that letter, doesn’t it? That blasted letter. Rey curses the day she ever heard the first whisper of it, but now Kylo’s acting as if-

 

“Oh surely you don’t mean that?” An idea, the most obvious one, dawns to Rey but she immediately dismisses it. “You’re the first and only heir to the Alderaan throne. No matter what dispute you’ve had with your mother, surely she can’t take your birthright away. Don’t be silly.”

 

He’s the crown prince. The only prince. That’s the long and short of it.

 

When Kylo pushes away from the table to stand, Rey isn’t sure if she should follow him. He starts to pace and Rey remains seated, fidgeting now with the rough wood edge of her table since she has little else to distract herself with.

 

“She has enemies, my mother. Of course she does, anyone in her power would, but these I fear mean to take her long departure then sudden arrival to their advantage. Prove that the Alderaan crown is unfit and our priorities lay not where they should be.”

 

Well, that’s all very true. True, but hurtful right at this moment. Rey refrains from saying that part though, and opts instead to make the other obvious connection.

 

“That sounds like the Resistance. They told me something very much the same about you. Are you really so afraid of them that you’re running off into the sands to hide?”

 

Kylo shoots her a dirty look and Rey drops her head, pretending to play with her rapidly congealing dinner.

 

“I’m not a fool, Rey. There’s plenty of treachery going on right under our very nose, and I’m not only thinking of your terrorist allies. I’ve been letting so much slip through my fingers, but not any more. Now I’m going to change things. Now I _will_ prove myself.”

 

With that, Kylo finally stops pacing. The room was too small for much of that, anyhow, and Rey takes a careful note of his glum but steely countenance as he returns to sitting across from her.

 

For the next few moments she thinks over the range of possible implications before speaking again. The empress was well liked by her people, her son well not, and his father somewhere in between. Chances are high that the truth of them all lies in the middle.

 

“It’s starting to sound more like you’re planning on thwarting an assassination attempt,” she says. Surely though, not even my brash and arrogant husband would try such a thing on his very own, would he?”

 

“I want to set right what’s wrong. Now give me your hand, I want to hold it.”

 

Palm extended. Entitled. Face down. Avoiding her eyes.

 

Her husband in a nutshell.

 

Rey’s hand extends, not fighting him when he grabs it and hold on tight.

 

“Or more like you’re trying to show off for mummy and make her proud of her boy. Show her she was wrong about you.”

 

Kylo picks at his soup but makes no attempt to eat it.

 

“Her ship arrives to the coast in two weeks. I want to see her. It’s been too long. I want to be there waiting, and I want you to come with me.”

 

A quest. He’s giving her, giving _them_ , a quest. Just like from the storybook she had been reading. This is a call to adventure, and he’s asking her to be his ally.

 

“We can’t do it alone. It won’t be safe for you.”

 

The thrill of wandering off alone, just the two of them, into the open sands will lose it’s luster very quickly for her pampered husband. Rey knows this for a fact. And two weeks to go so far? No. It’s foolhardy at best. Life isn’t a fairytale. This is not their grand adventure.

 

“Rey, darling, I believe it will be far safer alone than with anyone else. I have no one I can trust. Not with this.”

 

But I can trust you.

 

He doesn’t say it, but when Rey looks into his eyes she can see the words there. He has no reason to trust her. Many reasons _not_ to, in fact. But here he is, extending the proverbial olive branch all the while holding on to her hand so tightly she has no real chance to pull away.

 

“I… I should like to sleep on it,” she concedes. “In the morning I'll give you an answer. Tonight we’re not going anywhere anyhow, so let’s wake up with the dawn and let the storm decide for us.”

 

A beat passes between them. A long one. Rey can see him struggle to accept her answer. See him fight back the urge to demand that he gets what he wants the moment he wants it.

 

Then he seems to take victory over himself. He lets go of her hand and nods, gesturing at their meal with a tip of his chin.

 

“Thank you for making dinner, Rey. It’s lovely. Truly something born out of the fiery underbelly of hell to warm our tired souls on this stormy night.”

 

Rey gapes at him. The way his face puckers when he takes another bite is  ridiculously unneccesary .

 

“Spoiled brat,” she mutters.

 

Kylo smiles. Presses his palm against  his lips and Rey watches him for too long before looking away .

 

“This soup Rey. My goodness. Fiery belly of hell.”

 

“It’s jerky and broth, Kylo. Nothing more.”

 

“Oh?” His eyes flick up and hold her own until she glances away at their dim fire. “I see I called the dish by its rightful name then. Good on me for that.”

 

This time, when Rey flicks a spoonful of hell-broth at him, her husband doesn’t manage to doge in time. The highly affronted look as he swipes it off his cheek makes it all worth while. Almost. 

 

*

 

Their marriage bed for the evening was a dusty, musty old wooden palette with naught but a few threadbare scraps of fabric draped across it.

 

That didn’t stop Kylo from pouncing on her and  latching on tight as soon as Rey snuffed out the candle.

 

Outside it was another lull in the storm. Streaks of moonlight were spilling in from the abundance of cracks in the wall and roof. Rey should be more concerned about snakes and scorpions than she was her husband’s roving hands, but the latter way driving her to absolute distraction.

 

He was rubbing the outside of her hip, sliding his palm from just above her knee to the dip of her waist and then back again. The movement was slow, soft, and as maddening as his silence as he was doing it.

 

It was so much. Too much. His breath was warm in her ear, his body so close to hers. It made Rey  feel very squirmy, but she couldn’t let herself do that because then he’d know he was getting to her. So  instead she squeezed her legs tightly together to hold  herself still, but that started to cause other  discomforts as well.

 

Rey swallows into the darkness, praying for dawn to come soon even though night had only just began. She hears Kylo lift his head up from next to her and stare down at her.

 

“Restless, my darling?” His voice is a deep purr. Rey hates him. Hates him so much. “I should have thought you exhausted. What with how quick you had demanded we stop our dinner and retire.”

 

Well  the conclusion of their evening hadn’t exactly happened that way, but trust her husband to twist her ‘no more talking about our trouble s tonight, Kylo, alright?’ into something that sounded intrinsically debauched.

 

His hand falls still at her waist now, his fingers strumming against her  still  largely empty belly. Why was he touching her like this? Touching her at all?

 

It takes Rey a good few breaths before she can trust herself to speak.

 

“I can’t sleep,” she whispers. “I feel like we’re being watched.”

 

It was the judgmental eyes of her former self. If only young and starving Rey could see them now. Married, swaddled in silk, laying almost in the dirt and contemplating how a husband that she barely knows could make her feel so many things at once.

 

“There’s no one here, Rey. Just us.”

 

He whispers it right back, breathing more than saying the words against the shell of her ear and the discomfort between her legs only grows in intensity.

 

When he kisses her temple Rey starts to tremble and this  time she can’t stop it. Kylo’s hand lift from  h er waist to her shoulder, and he slowly turns her over onto h e r back.

 

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

 

She can’t see him fully. Just a strong, dark shape with hair even blacker than the night around him. Outside the clouds over the moon shift, darkening the room until all that’s left is the memory of his  silhouette.

 

“K-Kylo.”

 

Warm breath against her lips. He hasn’t kissed her yet. Hasn’t dared.

 

“Why are you so afraid of me, Rey? You become like this every time that I touch you. What are you afraid that I’m going to do to you?”

 

Oh he doesn’t get it. Rey is rather relieved that he doesn’t, truthfully. Because she’s not so much afraid of him but rather herself around him. That’s far more dangerous and wicked.

 

“You make me... nervous.”

 

The room brightens and the winds dull. He’s smiling, so pale against the moonlight.

 

“I can tell,” he answers. 

 

His hand moves to cup her face and Rey sucks in a breath as he throws a leg over her own, pinning her under him.

 

“One word, Rey. Stop. And I will,” he promises. “Now tell me, how much you know about pleasure?”

 

Rey’s eyes widen and his smile grows. She wishes the bloody moon would stop being her enemy and his ally.

 

“W-what?”

 

His fingers trace her lips, not dodging when her tongue  flickers out to wet them without her thinking of it. 

 

“Pleasure, Rey,” he repeats. “The act of something happening to make you feel good. How much do you know of it?”

 

W e ll the karking book he had  all but  forc e d upon her had a whole  sequence of chapters  regarding t hat one word. On giving it and receiving it and knowing it. Rey had looked at those pages, skimmed them, maybe read them in more detail but with diminishing returns of understanding.

 

She can’t think about such things now, though. Now when her husband’s heady  presence is demanding every drop of her attention. 

 

Rey shakes her head, her voice leaving her at the memory of some of the artwork the book had provided. Confusing indeed.

 

“Because you seem more _nervous_ about  pleasure than about me. Me you’re annoyed at. You snap at. You pretend not to like. But the second I start touching you – touching more than just holding your hand but sometimes even then- you seize up. Become a meek and shy little mouse. Not the wife I’ve come to know at all.”

 

Meek? Shy?  _ Meek? _

 

Rey’s anger sparkles to life quickly. Her husband was good at kindling that. She sucks in a breath to protest but falters to a stop when he shifts positions again, rising up onto his elbows and knees to pin her under him at four corners. The gesture is as effective as if he’d  dra ped h e r in irons, and he’s not even really touching her save for his palm stroking hr cheek.

 

“See?” he asks. “Just like that. You act like I’m torturing you.”

 

His hand now drifts down to her neck, his touch so slight but Rey still knows he must be  able to feel her pulse hammering under her skin.

 

“Aren’t you?”

 

“No.”

 

His fingers drift to her clavicle, tracing the shape of it. Following the contours of her skin by his touch when the ever changing moonlight won’t allow him to with his eyes.

 

“How does this feel?” he asks. “Does this bother you? Hurt you? Do you want me to stop?”

 

If Rey were able to answer, she’d have to breathe  first. As it is, her lungs are aching from need for oxygen. It’s all fine, though, Kylo seems to be breathing hard enough for the both of them.

 

“No? Shall I continue, then?”

 

His fingers lift, catching her chin, and drawing her face up. His lips are so terribly close, but they only barely ghost over her own before his  head drifts  lower.

 

Kylo kisses her neck, right over her pulse point, and Rey giv e s in to th e need to whimper.

 

“Rey.”

 

He pulls away just far enough to nuzzle the edge of her chin with his nose. Sh e ’s trembling rather badly now, fisting the threadbare sheets under her with both hands, and her husband’s a madman if he thinks she can answer him right now.

 

“It’s alright, Rey,” he hums, voice tickling her suddenly hypersensitive skin. “I knew you were untouched, but… but perhaps I underestimated exactly how far so. You’ve never even had someone else do this to you, have you?”

 

If there was any doubt about what  _ this _ meant, Kylo makes himself clear with another ghost of a kiss to the column of her neck. He draws it out this time, his lips so feather light that Rey could almost believe they  weren't ’ really there were it not for the loss of heat he left behind in the wake as he moves down. Kylo places his next kiss right in the center between her collarbones and, when his hand lets go of her to begin to untie the top bow of hr gown, Rey catches it in her own to stop him.

 

“Please.”

 

Please stop. Please keep going. Please don’t put me in this situation. Please ignore me.

 

“You’re breathing awfully hard, Rey.”

 

His head lifts though his  hand stays, and Rey immediately misses the feel of his  closeness.

 

“So no one else has ever pleasured you, then? No one at all?”

 

Rey swallows again. Her mouth is suddenly very, very dry. She shakes her head, not trusting her voice.

 

Kylo hums, his lips next touching her forehead. He seems entirely too pleased with her  answer.

 

“And what of yourself, Rey? When you touch yourself, how do you do it? Tell me. Show me. Show me how you like to touch, and I’ll show you how to do it better.”

 

The book had covered that, what she thinks he’s alluding to, but Rey had skipped that chapter. _Honestly_ had skipped that chapter. Somehow it had seemed far too indecent. As if two bodies intertwined like a caduceus wasn’t lewd enough, the idea of one person alone-

 

“I haven’t.” Her voice squeaks, on the verge of breaking. “I’m… not that sort of girl.”

 

The kind of girl who had so little to do with her time that she could fall to idle  temptations all on her own.

 

Kylo stares at her, his hair hanging on all sides of their faces. Sh doesn’t have a clue what h e ’s looking for, because now they’re both so in shadow she can’t see him at all.

 

“Yes, I had wondered that,” he finally says. “It- with your narrative, it _fits_. And you’ve made me so very happy  tonight, Rey, though I doubt you shall appreciate me saying that.”

 

Appreciate? Rey barely even understands him. Something about masculine arrogance. That’s  _ his _ narrative. That  _ fits _ .

 

“You’re an arrogant ass.”

 

She fe e ls more than hears Kylo’s muffled laugh.

 

“Darling… you keep calling me that and I’m going to start to think you care. Now shall we continue?”

 

Rey  realizes that she had been unknowingly squirming under him. Pinned down but free to run at any moment. Her husband was a clever bastard, wasn’t he?

 

“Continue with what?”

 

His weight shifts. The bed creaks. Absently Rey  thinkings that his knees must be  paining him, kneeling on a hard surface like this just to torment her.

 

“Our game,” he answers. “Let’s make a bet. Let’s make it really interesting.”

 

He flops to one side, his hand catching her hip to pull her on to her own to face him.

 

“I’ll make a deal with you, Rey. I’ll keep doing what I was doing to you, and then I’ll stop. If you didn’t like it, tell me. That will be my answer. We’ll go home to the palace tomorrow, just like you want. However,” his hand sweeps a lock of hair out of her face and Rey presses her lips together, “if you _did_ like it and want me to keep going, then that’s _your_ answer. We’ll cross the desert and go to  my ocean.”

 

Rey had almost be e n ready to agree to that before he even made this perverse bargain, but she certainly can’t tell him that now. Sh e props her head up on her  elbow to stare at him better and he mirrors her, that damnable hand of his going back to her hip to pull her body flush to his own.

 

“Deal?” he asks.

 

Her clothing is sheer. Her ridiculous Wife’s Outfit lewd through and through. That’s why his palm feels so warm against her. 

 

She answers with a nod.

 

“Deal.” The barest whisper.

 

Rey doesn’t have to see her husband to know that he’s smiling. She can feel it in the way he kisses her, though. The press of his lips to her own. The steady  insistence of them. Rey sighs into his mouth, and he takes that as an  invitation to snake his tongue inside to play with her own.

 

This is a much more intense kiss than he’d given her before, not that they  had shared more than a few. Rey feels herself  getting swept away by it, all the  strength in her body laving her as he guides her to her back again, his lips never leaving her own. 

 

Now that she’s given her blessing, more or less, his hands aren’t so shy. He strokes her stomach, her hips, the underside of her breasts. Rey moans again as her whole body seems to come alight. It almost truly feels like she’s on fire, but there’s no pain to it, just a consuming ache.

 

When his thumb flicks over her nipple Rey throws her head back, a sickly sweetness settling deep in her core. She’s felt pangs of physical desire before, but never even remotely as keenly as this now.

 

“Rey,” Kylo asks.

 

H doesn’t give time for  h er to answer, opting  instead to start kissing down her neck then back up again. The knot in her stomach tightens, demanding  _ something _ , and pressing her legs together as his hand wanders along the seam of them only seems to make the feeling grow all the more. 

 

When he takes the lobe o f her ear between her teeth and gently, so gently, nibbles, Rey almost feels ready to explode.

 

His hand finds her breast, palming it, and Rey has to grab his head, sinking her fingers into his dark locks, and crush her mouth against his to bury the sound she finds herself making.

 

Kylo pulls away th e n, drawing o u t a choked whine from Rey’s lips  before she can catch it. The  urge to touch between her legs is strong. It feels like she’s rather messy down there, but surely not?

 

His hand goes back to her head, stroking her face, and Rey can now feel the perspiration  sticking her hair to  h er forehead.

 

“Did you like that Rey?” he asks. “Your first true glimpse of how I can make you feel?”

 

Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Her body is so demanding, so bothersome.  I t’s  embarrassing.

 

Another quick press of their lips and Rey sags, slumping weakly against the hard bed frame as sh e tries to fight back the ur ge to surrender completely to this.

 

Kylo angles himself, keeping th e low e r part of his body away from touching the lower part of hers, and  Rey wonders  if this was having a similar effect on him as well?

 

“The palace or the desert, Rey?” he finally asks. “Which will it be for us?”

 

If she had a clear head, Rey could make a clear decision. Her husband’s just seen to it that that would eb an impossibility.

 

“Desert,” she says, voice weak and thin in the warm night air. “To the desert and to the ocean.”

 

What a terrible choice. But Rey doesn’t regret it for a second. Not even one.

 

Kylo nods, his eyes dark but glittering under the returning moonlight. Rey stops him with a hand to the middle of his chest when he moves to kiss her again.

 

“No- no more. Not tonight. Please.”

 

Rey doubts she could withstand any more of her husband’s  _ pleasuring _ . She might die from it, truly, with the way her heart is all but  pounding out of her chest.

 

Mercifully Kylo nods and pulls away, but only for so long as to grab the bottom edge of his tunic and pull it over his head. Then, bare chested, he pulls her into his arms again and places her head on his shoulder.

 

“What are you-”

 

“Intimacy, darling. The skin to skin contact will strengthen our bond. We will need this connection, I’m sure, in the weeks to come.”

 

His hand settles on the small of her back and Rey swallows.

 

“Strengthen our connection? Which one of your- of your _wives_ taught you that one?”

 

Which one of them dared to spend the night with you? That’s what she’s truly asking. 

 

Kylo’s silence tells her everything she needs to know.

 

Well you know what, Nevan? Suck it. Rey’s  here , she’s not. Rey’s the one about to go across the desert with  _ her _ husband, Nevan’s stuck at the palace. Who gets the last laugh now?

 

Or perhaps she should ask herself that a few days from now when her husband’s idiotic determination comes crashing down full force?

 

Until then,  Rey was absolutely positive it was going to be a sleepless night.

 

*

 

Rey was  _ absolutely positive  _ it was going to be a sleepless night.

 

Except she was wrong. Absolutely wrong.

 

Somehow she  had actually nodded off. She suspected rather early, in fact, though in the  morning she could blame th a t on the trials of the day they ahd faced and not the heavy warmth and security of her husband all around her.

 

She had fallen asleep no doubt, though. An oddly pleasant dream had swept through her mind, drawing her deep into the waters of unconsciousness. Something about and adventure. A happy ending that  belonged to someone other than  herself.

 

And it all fell away with a sudden, abrupt return to consciousness.

 

The room was dark. Very dark. No moon but no storm. Kylo was behind her, and the only sound was his deep and steady breathing.

 

No. Not the only sound. A creak.  A footstep.

 

Oh Rey knows her home. Knows it’s noises as it settles with the wind.

 

Except there  is no wind, and there should be no nois e .

 

A shift in the air currents caresses against her bare skin. That’s the only hint Rey has that the bedroom door has opened. 

 

They’re n ot alone anymore. Someone is in her house, looking for them, and now they’ve just been found.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the bit of head hopping during their touchy-touchy scene. I tried to be really subtle with jumping into Kylo’s thoughts for just a second, and I normally wouldn’t do that at all but it worked with the scene!
> 
> And also sorry for the delay. Over the last week I’ve flown back to the US with my family for an extended visit (we’re semi-permanently living in prague now for #reasons, but we’re going to be at our homes in TN then Idaho from now until November). It’s always a big, jetlaggy transition. No one was living at our house over the winter so the water pipes had busted so we had to fix those, need to get our cars up and running, and there was an incident with a snake I’ll skip right on past, but let’s just say that we’ve had our hands full and no time for writing!
> 
> Oh and I’ve got some new fanfiction updates hopefully coming up soon. 1 new piece which, er, well… you’ll see. And then the next of H2H and ch2 of Lost Little Lamb. Work work work, self, get on it!


	18. A Flash of Red and Silver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Kylo and Rey go bump in the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short update to break the cliffy!

Their footsteps were too soft. Too deliberate.

 

Rey grips at Kylo, her whole body tightening as she wordlessly pleads with him to wake up. He doesn’t. Of course not. Instead her sleeping husband misunderstands urgency and pulls her tighter, his arm along her back drawing her closer to his chest.

 

The footsteps stop. The room is dark, but not too dark. Rey can see the dark, hunched over shape just as clearly as she knows they must see the whites of her own eyes shining in the muffled moonlight.

 

She screams when they leap, and it’s her old life that saves her from the knife in their hand. Years of well-honed survival instincts take over her rational thought. She kicks out, pushing her whole weight at the back of the assassins bent knee. Her elbow to his face resonates along her whole arm, and then her husband surges up in a tangle of confused strength and tattered bedsheets.

 

To his thick-headed credit he doesn’t stop to ask what’s going on. The assassin- dark robes, red, and white a knife glinting in an arc through the air- rolls back, sinking into the corner of the room.

 

They’re unarmed. Or wait, they’re not. Rey has her quarterstaff, but it’s stupidly in the other room.

 

The assassin leaps, and Kylo throws him against the wall. He was fast. Rey hadn’t even seen him move, but then he has the stranger pinned, the two of them fighting for ownership of the wicked looking blade that nearly seems to glow with each glint of light. It’s pointing right at her husband’s neck, a battle of strength against strength as Kylo tries to peel the gloved fingers back from it.

 

Rey spins, turning to run for the door and get her staff. Hells, get _any_ weapon, even a karking fry pot.

 

Hands seize her. Grab her and toss her, and for a pain filled moment all Rey sees is colored stars and blackness.

 

Stupid girl. Assassins never work alone.

 

It’s Kylo’s sharp cry that snaps her back from her daze just as quickly as she’d fallen to it. There had been a foot on her back, pinning her down and choking the air from her, but it leaves. Thundering steps to the bedroom and Rey coughs, hacking up all the years of dust the old floor had gathered.

 

She’s not their target then. But of course not. Why would she be?

 

This main room is darker than the bedroom, but Rey’s hands still find her staff even though her eyes cannot.

 

Then she up. Bounding. Her husband cries out again, but this time so does someone else.

 

The body is flung at her or near her. One of the assassins, and the other is a tangle of darkened limbs, wrestling with her husband over the bed they had just slept in.

 

Rey hits the man at her feet hard. Not enough to kill him- unless he is already- but _enough_.

 

There’s blood on the sheets. Their other attacker is strangling Kylo, the torn bedding wrapped around his neck and her husband claws at him from behind. It must be his blood then? Otherwise he would just throw him off?

 

Rey shrieks but she won’t know that until later.

 

Just like the assassin’s on Kylo, she’s on him. Rey throws herself onto his back, drawing her quarterstaff across his throat.

 

The man bucks, trying to toss her off but that only makes it worse. She doesn’t let go of her grip, the meat of her weapon pressing into his trachea until he starts to gurgle.

 

Kylo elbows him hard, nearly get Rey as he does it, and the three of them crumple backwards to the floor.

 

Rey pins with her legs, squeezing with her arms and trying to draw the staff to her chest as if there wasn’t a man between them.

 

Heat blooms into her leg. He stabbed her, the karker, and Kylo boxes him square across his jaw.

 

Blood. Some of it’s hers. And then silence.

 

Kylo falls to his side. His body heaves. Oh, he’s bleeding. Rey can’t see how bad it is, not with her being pinned under the both of them. She can’t breathe, either, not even enough to tell Kylo she can’t.

 

He gets it though. Takes a few moments longer than she would have liked, but Kylo struggles to stand and settles on kneeling.

 

“Rey.”

 

The body is peeled off her, shoved limply to the side.

 

“ _Rey_?”

 

It had been a question before, too. Rey just hadn’t noticed that.

 

He draws her up, the shakes starting to come now that the delayed nausea of adrenaline hits her full-force. Did they just-

 

A shuffle comes from outside. Something big.

 

Rey’s eyes widen. She nods at Kylo. She’s okay. Or not. Maybe. He tries to take her staff from her and her hands won’t let go, but they still claw at him as he struggles to his feet.

 

Another shuffle. Something being knocked over. Rey can’t see in the dark, of course, but now it almost feels like she can see in slow motion.

 

Kylo limps, opening the door, and she’s right behind him, staff ready and her mind automatically maneuvering her feet over the unconscious first body at the doorway.

 

A horse greets them, half in and half out of their front door.

 

“Oh,” Kylo says.

 

“Gods.”

 

He looks back at her. So does the horse. All four eyes drop down and right, Rey suddenly remembers she’s _just been stabbed._

 

“Oh!” she cries, mimicking her husband’s simple statement as her hands fly to her leg.

 

Her strength buckles and she slumps, guided to a chair by her husband who keeps saying her name over and over. She wishes he’d stop that, her ears are already ringing and he’s scaring the horse.

 

“More of them?” she manages to gasp.

 

Her leg feels on fire. The wound must not be too bad, but it’s bleeding and she  don't care. If they’re not safe yet-

 

“Rey, please,” Kylo takes her face in his hands. Why? “Calm down.”

 

He’s kneeling. His chest is red. It can’t be too bad either, right?

 

“K-Kylo, there are-”

 

“Only two, Rey.” He presses his forehead to hers. One or both of them is clammy with sweat. “There- there may be more coming but please, calm down, you look like you’re going to have a heart attack.”

 

Rey looks down then.

 

Kark.

 

She’d been clawing at the base of the chair, and only now does she  realize that she may have been calm on the inside but the reasons she’s still breathless is  because she’s gasping, crying silent tears.

 

Breathe. Breathe.

 

Stupid Uncle Luke and his stupid  self-control  advice.  Somebody just tried to kill her! But… but…

 

“Okay. You’re okay.”

 

And he crushes her to his chest. His wet chest. Near to them the horse whines and all the fight or flight momentum drains out of Rey at that soft sound.

 

he’s right. If there were more  assassins , the horse would be spooked. They’d be attacked by now.

 

“Kylo-”

 

“We need to go, Rey. More will be coming when… if these two don’t come back soon.”

 

Sh nods. Forces herself to. Straighten up, you stupid girl. Now is the time to focus and  _ think _ .

 

Kylo’s sticky warmth leaves her and Rey fumbles for a match. One single candle, that’s all she’ll allow them, and it still takes her all of seven tries with badly shaking fingers to light it.

 

The room’s an even bigger mess and her dress is ruined by royal blood. Kylo looks first at her wound then at his own.

 

“I… we were very lucky. They’re deep but the angles just skimmed.”

 

Rey’s wound was largely on the small amount of puppy fat she carried on her upper thighs. Painful and bloody, but her  fear had made her into a baby. She’s suffered worse injuries falling on rusted metal during her  scavenges , it had just felt like so much more in the heat of the moment.

 

Kylo’s, on the other hand, is long and wide. She’d thought it had only been on his chest but his face caught the edge of it as well. When he moves, she can see how much he’s trying to hide it.

 

“Serves me right for not wearing a shirt, huh?”

 

He smiles without humor and Rey frowns, shaking her head without a coherent thought to offer back.

 

“Rey?” he kneels again. “We need to go. Can you go?”

 

She nods and he helps her up. Oooh. For a comparatively small wound it hurts like the hells.

 

“Are they dead?” she asks, calling over her husband’s shoulder as she cringes, reluctant to enter the bedroom with him.

 

Kylo turns the head of the first assassin from side to side. He has the candle with him and the room Rey’s in is dark and horrid.

 

“No. Just unconscious. Would you like them to be dead?”

 

Would she- gods, his question is even worse than the  darkness ! Wh e n he looks back at her, her expression must give her away.

 

“I don’t know them,” he says, standing up again with a visible grit to his teeth. “Hired goons, but it’s not like they’d wear the company colors for this job, would they?”

 

Rey takes a single step closer.

 

Red and black. That’s what they’re wearing. Kylo pulls back their face masks and one of them grunts only to be silenced back into unconsciousness by a sharp backhand.

 

“I, um,” Kylo wipes a hand across his face and Rey realizes how stupid she must look cowering int h shadows like this.

 

“Kylo,” she tries to keep her voice steady, “we need a plan. Who are these men?”

 

He shakes his head.

 

“I have my suspicions, unless you would care to chime in?”

 

She blinks.

 

“I didn’t-”

 

“I know, okay, _I know._ ”

 

For a long  moment they look at each other, the only movement from the flickering flame of the candle as it dances about the drafts of her old home.

 

“How long until dawn?” Kylo asks. “How much water do we have?”

 

It takes a breath for his words to round out, then Rey immediately snaps into action. Right. Yes. Survival. They can analyze and panic about this later. Now it’s time to get out and get out  quick.

 

She turns,  glancing at the  setting moon behind the  horse's head. There was only one animal, but that’s was probably better. Fewer resources needed to keep it as well as themselves alive.

 

“About two hours. How long should- they’d be close, wouldn’t they? Whoever they were with?”

 

Close enough that already the assassin’s failure to report their mission’s success had probably been  noted.

 

Kylo starts to strip the men of their robes. As much as Rey hates the idea, it’s not a bad one. They’re own clothes are bloody, these aren’t. They look of the right fabric for the desert, too.

 

“Is there any other way out of here but through the front entrance?” Kylo asks. “Some hidden trail we could take the horse on?”

 

Rey had been packing up their meager food. More accurately she’d been throwing it all into a bag, her limbs suddenly unable to move fast enough with her racing mind.

 

She looks up, then, and stares at the corner of the wall.

 

“Yes, that way,” she gestures to where she had been staring. “An old path, unless its overgrown by now. It goes right by the water pit.”

 

“Then we’ll fill up there. Do it quick and quiet. And Rey?”

 

She turns her attention jerkily back to him.

 

“What?”

 

“We’ll need to keep calm. Both of us. Otherwise we’ll spook the horse and he’ll make noise.”

 

She never knew too much about those animals, but Kylo sounds confident. As confident as a man who was almost a victim to regicide could, under the circumstances.

 

Kylo takes their only bag of belonging and slings it over his shoulder. It clatters noisily, and she tightens a second loop of rope on it to keep it quieter.

 

Before they leave, Rey presses a kitchen knife into Kylo’s palm.

 

“I’m not giving up my staff,” she tells him.

 

“I know.”

 

He blows out her candle for her, then off they go,  disappearing into the night just as quickly and quietly as their unwanted guests had come to their home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this short little chapter! We’re about to start another big stage of their journey, and you’d better believe that crossing the desert won’t be a simple honeymoon trek!
> 
> Er, and sort of on topic, but I wanted to clear up something with this fic. I’ve had a strange experience of writing this story and getting an unusual amount of backlash for it. I’m not entirely sure why since most of the negative comments are based around the harem in general or Kylo being an asshole playboy. Both of these I think are correctly indicated in the tags, but it’s been a topic of contention from chapter 1 and we’re all the way up to going on ch19 now!
> 
> So, basically, I’m not planning on changing the direction of this story. Kylo (and most of the complaints are about his behavior) has a long and difficult story arc that he’s deep in the middle of. He’s going to continue being an obnoxious horndog for at least a number of more chapters, because that’s just where he is at right now. Rey also has her own journey. She’s very much in her own head regarding her sexuality, while Kylo is her opposite of being too free and too aggressive. That’s their dynamic for this stage of the story.
> 
> I understand if this sort of ‘sexual chase’ isnt’ to everyone’s taste, but c’mon. It’s been eighteen chapters. I’m happy with how this story is going and I think most of the readers here are too. So, just a s a general forewarning, if you haven’t liked the last few chapters, you’re not going to like the next few either. If these themes aren’t something that you want to read, than now is the time to stop reading this fic because it’s not changing.
> 
> But for the rest of you all who have stuck with this story through all its ups and downs and long gaps in updates and still take the time to comment to let me know you’re enjoying it: THANK YOU SO MUCH! Really! Your words of encouragement really make me so very, terribly happy so please keep them up! We have some very exciting (I hope) events coming and lots o desert vibes and drama and I hope and look forward to seeing who comes along with Kylo and Rey on their journey!


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